Administrators Nathan Posted January 7, 2013 Administrators Share Posted January 7, 2013 Has anyone else ever tried out CloudFlare? Pretty cool tool. It helps your site load quicker, prevent ddos attacks, and much more. I wanted to give it a try so just signed up Prodjex.com on there. Should be live in a few hours. I have a fast server right now, so not sure how it could load any faster...we will see... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I have used Cloudflare before. Yes, it does boost the load speed a bit. The other thing that it does is cache the contents of the site, so that if the site goes off-line for a short while, visitors will be served the cached contents. One problem, though. I moved one of my sites to another host. Then, on the Cloudflare panel, I couldn't make any changes to the site because it keeps telling me to refer to my former host. Something's not quite right there. I sent a ticket to the support staff but they didn't understand what I was talking about. I will have to try again. In the meantime I am using AnyCast. The features are similar to Cloudflare in some ways. AnyCast does not cache the contents, though. What it does is serve the site via multiple nodes. Like, say, the visitor is from Hongkong. He will be logging into the site from the node nearest to Hongkong instead of, say, logging into US where the site is hosted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 8, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 8, 2013 It's worked great so far, very impressed. Keep in mind that it caches you site, so if you go to do some development that you disable it or you won't be able to figure out why you cannot see your changes. Just wasted about 20 minutes trying to figure out why my new logo would update Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridwan sameer Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Never used it but ive heard the name tossed around, and seen it at the footer of pretty powerful sites "Protected by CLoudFlare" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 8, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 8, 2013 One of the founders of CloudFlare is a Founder from PayPal from what I've been hearing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 When I was part of the Stratics community for a very small amount of time I know they were using it and it did make significant difference when it came page loading and security. I wasn't on the tech support team so I don't know the full ins and outs but from a user prospective there was significant difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 (edited) Yes I use CloudFlare with all my websites (except the SSL ones as they cost $20 per month). I really love CloudFlare as it reduces bandwidth usage and also enhances the website speed. The only issue I find is when you change an image. Changes don't show for hours sometimes. The way around this is to purge the CloudFlare cache and put the site into developer mode. Edited January 10, 2013 by Quiver WisTex 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridwan sameer Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 One of the founders of CloudFlare is a Founder from PayPal from what I've been hearing. Woah interesting So it's technically a site speed and protection service? How hard is it to get installed on a site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 10, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 10, 2013 It was super simple, anyone can do it. Yeah it improves site speed, let's you know of security issues, ddos attacks ect.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbigfan Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 Cloudflare is a very useful product but I wanted to add that they do NOT want to be known simply as a CDN (content distribution network). They take pride in the traffic security and reporting they provide as is evidenced by the number of features they make available and partnerships with other companies. I was an early adopter of Cloudflare but stopped using the service when I fully optimized my own sites. Not using Cloudflare removes an extra point of failure but you had better optimize your site fully or else you're likely missing out on some inexpensive performance. WisTex 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnthomas1433 Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 I used Cloudfare for my websites, and I didnt see any advantage on using it. The main problem was that when I was building a website, Cloudfare shall cache it, and it takes a bit of time to update their cache, and sometimes it does take more than 24 hours for some of my code to take effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 14, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 14, 2013 I used Cloudfare for my websites, and I didnt see any advantage on using it. The main problem was that when I was building a website, Cloudfare shall cache it, and it takes a bit of time to update their cache, and sometimes it does take more than 24 hours for some of my code to take effect. Yeah they have a option now to enable development mode so it stops caching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicheGuy Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 I use CloudFlare and I got started via HostGator and a friend who suggested it for a good way of blocking countries where you may be exposed to malicious bots or individuals practicing activities that may harm your site. I was having problems from some locations and with a click of a button you can block any country on the fly. In fact, I have 14 sites on my CloudFlare account and when you block a counrty or IP for that matter it is universal on your cloud for all your sites. My issues disappeared, my load times are fine (not sure if they are faster, my sites are well optimized for quick loading) and I've only noticed some very minimal downtime, really just a minor hiccupt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewt Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 While it is good at preventing ddos attacks, it will not handle a large site that is under attack by a smart attacker or a group of attackers. I know because it happened with blackhatworld, and that is a website that can't mess around with losing visitors so they switched to another solution fast. From my experience it is okay, but I don't have a top 500 website to say anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soulwatcher Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 I just stared using Cloudflare today and so far so good. It seesm to have slightly increased my website speed. But I want it more for blocking unwanted traffic to my website. My website has been hitting 100% cpu a lot lately and there is no reason for it because Its new and my traffic is low. I will let you guys know how it is working for me after a week. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted July 16, 2014 Author Administrators Share Posted July 16, 2014 I had to turn it off on my biggest site Star Citizen Base. For some reason it was blocking legit traffic. It also messes up the tracking of IP addresses during registration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonk3y Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 I had to turn it off on my biggest site Star Citizen Base. For some reason it was blocking legit traffic. It also messes up the tracking of IP addresses during registration. I have been using cloud flare for a couple of months now. It has increased my site speed but it have not seen any blocking of legit traffic. How did you come to know that some traffic was being blocked ? Have you tried to search on the internet or contacted their support ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted July 17, 2014 Author Administrators Share Posted July 17, 2014 Yeah I was getting reports. The site get's about 50k uniques a day so lots of traffic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonk3y Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Yeah I was getting reports. The site get's about 50k uniques a day so lots of traffic. Well in that case I will never know if right now cloudflare is blocking and legit traffic. I started my blog some time ago but I have not paid much attention to it. It barely gets a few hits every day. How can I check if they are blocking and legit traffic on my blog any suggestions ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted July 18, 2014 Author Administrators Share Posted July 18, 2014 No clue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikka254 Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I heard about cloudflare and so I decided to use it. I had a bad experience with it even during sign up and I thought to myself if their own page will not load correctly how will they upgrade mine? I'll maybe try to use cloudflare at a later point but with a website that I am not invested in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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