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CrimeFlarE
Why you should say "NO" to Cloudflare
Are you already aware of the problems of Cloudflare?
You might want to check:
Who are we?
CrimeFlarE(CFE) is a group of volunteer Tor, privacy and net neutrality
enthusiasts working to counter CloudFlare’s oppressive attack on the Tor
community and reduce the harms CloudFlare brings to all users (Tor users and
clearnet users).
Who is Cloudflare?
Cloudflare is the world's largest man-in-the-middle proxy. Technically it is called "reverse proxy". This means that it sits between you and the server which sent you webpages and images.
Cloudflare is a content delivery network, which means that it has different servers in different locations, so that websites are supposed to be better reachable. This has some bad sides.
Why you shouldn't use it
Privacy problems
Single point of failure
Cloudflare goes down from time to time. All the content which uses Cloudflare goes down as well when that happens.
Read more about the single point of failure.
It removes anonymity
Cloudflare usually blocks Tor or makes it hard for Tor users to access the website or content. Tor is not only for criminals. It is important for many people and everyone has the right on privacy.
Tor is important, read more about why Tor matters.
Cloudflare often uses Google reCATPCHAs to check if you are human. These CAPTCHAs which check if you are human, track you and many claim that they even try to find out which human you are.
Read more about the reCAPTCHA problem.
Project Honey Pot
"Project Honey Pot" is a project which collects a lot of personal data and much of that data is from innocent people who deserve privacy. Cloudflare was created by people who worked on that project. US DHS showed interest to this project.
Not convenient
Cloudflare is not convenient for many visitors of your site. You will lose visitors when you choose Cloudflare. Many people who helped writing this file even blocked by Cloudflare.
Did you know that you can lose visitors because your site doesn't load in a few seconds?
Cloudflare often makes visitors wait for more than few seconds. Many visitors will just leave your site when they see this.
No one wants to click multiple images just to read your website.
Here is an example video of CloudFlare blocking user who is using privacy add-ons.
Other problems
There are other problems as well, but we want to keep this file simple. Those problems are listed in another file.
Cloudflare Alternatives
Do you own a website? We created a file with Cloudflare alternatives to make your life easier if you agree with us.
Solutions
Blocking Cloudflare request or IPs
Share information about the problem
Many supporters of CrimeFlarE have written some articles about the problem. You can check them out and share them.
You can ask website owners to stop using Cloudflare, please do so in a polite way. It might be good to mention some alternatives.
There are more files on this repository to educate yourself. We haven't included them all in the README to keep it fairly readable.
Not convinced yet?
Many supporters of CrimeFlarE have written some articles about the problem. You can check them out and share them.
Still not convinced? That's fine.
Just know that many people won't be able to use your content or website. Cloudflare works against you.