Do you guys use Cloudflare?

Do you guys use Cloudflare for your websites?

Personally I don't like Cloudflare. I hate waiting for it to load when I visit sites sometimes. I hate how sometimes on outdated browsers or/and if you have an adblocker extension in your browser or/and if you're using a proxy, sometimes you never even get through cloudflare. Annoying waste of time!

So I don't like Cloudflare personally, and so I never used it on any of my sites. I don't wanna subject people to the same shit that bothers me. Don't do to others and all that shit. I'm a nice guy like that

But unfortunately there's assholes out there trying to hack your sites and attack your sites and do all these evil things, so I'm thinking of using Cloudflare on all of my websites.

So I wanna know what you guys think and do?

Mainly I am using Cloudflare to hide my site details from others. Another thing is site speed. Cloudflare helps me to reduce at least 1 second of loading time. One time my VPS get hacked and they said it came through my sites. I used Cloudflare for all my sites but still, it gets hacked. You need to configure the VPS and WordPress correctly to prevent such attacks. Cloudflare helps to secure sites but not fully.

It comes by default with the hosting I have chosen mate

18young said:

Mainly I am using Cloudflare to hide my site details from others. Another thing is site speed. Cloudflare helps me to reduce at least 1 second of loading time. One time my VPS get hacked and they said it came through my sites. I used Cloudflare for all my sites but still, it gets hacked. You need to configure the VPS and WordPress correctly to prevent such attacks. Cloudflare helps to secure sites but not fully.

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Why/how would you use Cloudflare to hide your site details from others? I mean, Private Whois does that as far as your domain goes. What does Cloudflare hide for you?

The speed, well, I did a bit of reading and some people claim cloudflare improves speed and others say it makes your site slower. Personally in my ignorance I'm on the slower camp, simply because of the few seconds it takes for the cloudflare page to load and allow someone on your site. Those few seconds, you're slower just by that.

I don't use a VPS. Is that like VPS hosting? I don't know nothing about that, I use shared hosting. But so how did you get hacked then? Outdated wordpress/plugins? How did they hack you, do you know?

getseoonline said:

It comes by default with the hosting I have chosen mate

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I prefer to be hands on.

No one can be trusted. And with that in mind, a hosting provider can't be trusted. I'll do it better if I do it myself, and I'll know exactly what's happening if I do it myself

Not on my sites, but I have pretty decent hosting.

MisterF said:

Not on my sites, but I have pretty decent hosting.

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Oh? Why not?

So but if you were on some shitty hosting, like hostgator shared hosting for example, then your suggestion would be to use Cloudflare, yes?

You'll need ddos protection sooner or later anyway. As soon as you taste some success there are going to be all sorts of douchebags trying to take you down.

Scorpion Ghost said:

Why/how would you use Cloudflare to hide your site details from others? I mean, Private Whois does that as far as your domain goes. What does Cloudflare hide for you?

The speed, well, I did a bit of reading and some people claim cloudflare improves speed and others say it makes your site slower. Personally in my ignorance I'm on the slower camp, simply because of the few seconds it takes for the cloudflare page to load and allow someone on your site. Those few seconds, you're slower just by that.

I don't use a VPS. Is that like VPS hosting? I don't know nothing about that, I use shared hosting. But so how did you get hacked then? Outdated wordpress/plugins? How did they hack you, do you know?

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Cloudflare helps to hide IPs and nameservers. When you are using whois as far as I know it only hides your personal details like name, address, and others. But when people look at your site through 3rd parties they can still find what is your hosting and IP address.

About the hacking part, I really don't know how it happens but a few people in here help me to find out the issue. They think somehow they inject PHP code into my site. No, I don't have any outdated plugins or themes but I had a wp rocket plugin that found from here. I don't think that is the issue but might be. They didn't do anything on my sites. They just hack my email platform in hosting and start to spam. Still don't know how it happened but people say it is possible.

Yes I use it on all of my sites, the first benefit is that Cloudflare has the fastest DNS Resolver and it protects you from other potential online threats like DDoS protection and of course the main use of it as CDN. It works best especially if you are on shared hosting plan.

Configure your site with WP-Rocket + Perfmatters and Cloudflare CDN and you will see the difference. Its needless to say that Cloudflare has around 200 PoP across the world and works great with shared hosting plans. If you don't use CDN, you should use other CDN services or better try using Cloudflare and check out how it works for you.

Scorpion Ghost said:

But unfortunately there's assholes out there trying to hack your sites and attack your sites and do all these evil things, so I'm thinking of using Cloudflare on all of my websites.

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That's the main reason I'm using Cloudflare. They saved me several times from those losers.
It also speeds my website so I see no reason not to use it.

I am using diff cdn. It serves better than cf.

Scorpion Ghost said:

Oh? Why not?

So but if you were on some shitty hosting, like hostgator shared hosting for example, then your suggestion would be to use Cloudflare, yes?

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You are to be blamed here mate for choosing Hostgator i am sure members here are still clueless as to why one would go with that crap company

getseoonline said:

You are to be blamed here mate for choosing Hostgator i am sure members here are still clueless as to why one would go with that crap company

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Well, yes I can be blamed, but not for using Hostgator. Sure it may not be the best host, but with the black friday discounts and their 3 year packages I've spent less than $300 for hosting in 8 years, and I've made 6 figured in those 8 years with those sites that I'm hosting there.

Sure there were some issues, but they were small issues. My hosting getting suspended was the first time a serious issue occurred with my hosting...

...and that is what I can be blamed for.

I can be blamed for the fact that I neglected updates and security concerns and ran outdated sites with outdated code. This allowed my sites to get hacked, and because of that my CPU usage went too high, and that got me suspended. That was my fault.

What I blame hostgator for is that they didn't need to just suspend me. They could see my CPU usage was high and send me an email to inform me about it, and then give me 6/12/24 hours to fix the problem. Then if I don't fix it, then suspend me.

But what they do is they suspend you and then they email you to tell you that you can solve it either by upgrading your hosting or by cleaning it up and replying to the email so that they can check. And I think the reason they do that is because they want to pressure you into upgrading your account. They figure all of your sites are down all of a sudden, you're stressed out, there's a good chance you'll upgrade your hosting to solve the problem ASAP. And they make money.

That's kind of a dick move. But it is what it is.

---

I don't accept any blame for using hostgator. It's not like I took my children (I don't have any) to a known paedophile to look after. Don't be crazy. As shitty as their hosting is, it works, and it's cheap.

And just to add, I got on hostgator 8 years ago, and back then people on this forum were still recommending them as a good host. And I am a dinosaur, and that's where I come from, and I bring some of that old way of doing things with me.

I use CF for all web sites of mine.

PhYtOn said:

I use CF for all web sites of mine.

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Hey me too bro. Like, since an hour ago

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think it'll throw a captcha unless you have it configured to do that under certain conditions.
I could be mistaken about that, but I've never seen a captcha on my own sites.
Some sites, though, like BHW, are always throwing captchas for no reason, so I know what you're talking about.

All my sites are on the free plan.
The free plan is fantastic for the DNS, CDN, and SSL.
I've done EXTENSIVE research on DNS and CDN providers, in the past.
Long story short... Cloudflare is the best overall solution, especially for free. (150+ pops)

Actually, I used to use Google DNS, and switched to Cloudflare a while back.
I even tested some special DNS providers, but Cloudflare is better.
Based on benchmarks, Cloudflare is actually the fastest DNS in the world. (last I checked)

You might find BunnyCDN interesting, if you are into Wordpress sites, still, because it has a useful page rule system.
You might also find Netlify useful, because it combines multiple cloud providers to create a highly redundant and simple CDN. (might only work for static, though... don't recall)
Again, however... Cloudflare is the best solution at-scale.

getivan said:

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think it'll throw a captcha unless you have it configured to do that under certain conditions.
I could be mistaken about that, but I've never seen a captcha on my own sites.
Some sites, though, like BHW, are always throwing captchas for no reason, so I know what you're talking about.

All my sites are on the free plan.
The free plan is fantastic for the DNS, CDN, and SSL.
I've done EXTENSIVE research on DNS and CDN providers, in the past.
Long story short... Cloudflare is the best overall solution, especially for free. (150+ pops)

Actually, I used to use Google DNS, and switched to Cloudflare a while back.
I even tested some special DNS providers, but Cloudflare is better.
Based on benchmarks, Cloudflare is actually the fastest DNS in the world. (last I checked)

You might find BunnyCDN interesting, if you are into Wordpress sites, still, because it has a useful page rule system.
You might also find Netlify useful, because it combines multiple cloud providers to create a highly redundant and simple CDN. (might only work for static, though... don't recall)
Again, however... Cloudflare is the best solution at-scale.

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I cant spend the next 6 months dealing with this.

Its already decided, Cloudflare for me.

But only because i feel like i must.

If i could do anything i wanted, i wouldnt use cloudflare. Because anything you touch in life has the potential to evolve into a serious fucking problem.

So i like to cut things out, remove, delete and burn them. Dissolve them in acid. GET FUCKING RID OF THEM.

So using cloudflare is just another bookmark in my browser, another thing to consider if moving domain registrar and/or hosting provider, another thing to consider in terms of SEO. Its just another source of potential problems.

But, well, it is what it is. Im using it on all my sites now and thats that.

Life is not exactly how we want it to be. Get used to it

I use CF with shared hosting as it does speed up my sites a bit. But you correctly said, it can be a nuisance as well.
BHW is on CF.
"Some sites, though, like BHW, are always throwing captchas for no reason" - I rarely get captchas on my home IP address, VPN is another story.

praetserge said:

I use CF with shared hosting as it does speed up my sites a bit. But you correctly said, it can be a nuisance as well.
BHW is on CF.
"Some sites, though, like BHW, are always throwing captchas for no reason" - I rarely get captchas on my home IP address, VPN is another story.

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Yeah i know. I fucking hate it when i visit BHW and i have to wait for the fucking Cloudflare page to load. I hate it even harder when i have to solve the captcha on ocassion.

So you think im gonna live for 10.000 years and i can waste my time waiting for Cloudflare to "check my browser"? Get fucked!!!

But, eh, it is what it is. Its not a perfect world.

I did use CF exclusively for a long time. You really can’t beat free. Recently I switched from Apache to litespeed server. I started using quic cloud as my cdn/dns provider. Very impressed with the performance and it’s very cheap.