I have embedded a link into the title where a person is frustrated with Cloudflare.

I’m interested in knowing the extent of their telemetry and data collection. The user alleges that Cloudflare collects cookies from visitors when one visits a website using their proxy + CDN?

Just to be transparent: I’m not looking to use Cloudflare, I’m going to use my own setup with a VPS, however it is important to know about such technologies, especially since I work in IT.

  • @[email protected]
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    2310 months ago

    He wants to block every single site that uses cloudflare.

    Maybe it would be easier to block access to everything except a trusted whitelist

    I think at this point the best approach is to call the ISP and ask for a cancellation. Buy a modem and connect to old style BBS

    • @MigratingtoLemmyOP
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      910 months ago

      Not the point though. I don’t care about his motivations, only the fact that brought up: how much do their telemetry practices extend? How do they track even our cookies?

      • @[email protected]
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        810 months ago

        On normal proxy they shouldn’t be able, on protected pages they can get the one previously set for the interstitial page for DDoS or login protection (nobody would like to enter a CAPTCHA on every single load)

    • LazaroFilm
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      710 months ago

      Unplugging the Ethernet cable does the same effect lol.

  • @SheeEttin
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    1010 months ago

    https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

    Seems the attitude against it is “I just don’t like it”.

    If someone keeps getting the captcha interstitial, it’s probably because they’ve configured their browser to turn off things like JavaScript and cookies. This makes them different from a regular user, and can either break a site due to missing requirements, or makes them look like a bot, which Cloudflare will block.

    • chiisana
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      310 months ago

      (Most) Bots don’t do JavaScript — because that’d require an entire new engine on the client end, which consumes some resources; resources that they’d rather use to do more bottling. By turning off cookies and JavaScript, the “privacy conscious” user is making themselves look like bots. Vast majority of site operators doesn’t want bots, so they employ mechanisms to detect bots to prevent bots from accessing their site… so if users make themselves look like bots, and operators don’t want bots, then the users must be prepared to deal with the repercussions of their actions (of disabling JS and cookies).

    • SuperFola
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      410 months ago

      It doesn’t load for me, and according to the way back machine (it couldn’t save the readme somehow?) it redirects to a framagit repo that wants me to create an account.

    • ubergeek77
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      410 months ago

      It’s really hard to take calls to action like this seriously, when they unironically talk like this:

      You cannot pass this invasive “browser check” without enabling JavaScript. This is a waste of five(or more) seconds of your valuable life.

      Most of the other points are either grasping, misleading, or make the classic FOSS-centric assumption that we live in a fantasy land where all hosting is free and companies don’t need to exist.

      I’m not out here trying to say Cloudflare is vital to society, but come on, these arguments are toothless.

  • @[email protected]
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    510 months ago

    I generally avoid Cloudflare where possible personally because at the the end of the day, they’re a giant big tech company based in the US, with pretty much unprecedented control over the internet.

    With that said, last time I looked into their privacy policy, I thought it was acceptable, but that’s been a while ago, so not entirely sure nowadays. Either way I’m not a huge fan.

  • @[email protected]B
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    10 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
    IP Internet Protocol

    3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.

    [Thread #36 for this sub, first seen 13th Aug 2023, 15:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • @bigredgiraffe
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    210 months ago

    Cloudflare does post their IP ranges so I would probably start with looking at traffic involved with those IPs to see what kind of information was going there, you could also block those ranges and see what breaks.