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Using Cloudflare on your website could be blocking RSS users

(openrss.org)
556 points campuscodi | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 22:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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amatecha ◴[17 Oct 24 06:43 UTC] No.41867018[source]▶
I get blocked from websites with some regularity, running Firefox with strict privacy settings, "resist fingerprinting" etc. on OpenBSD. They just give a 403 Forbidden with no explanation, but it's only ever on sites fronted by CloudFlare. Good times. Seems legit.
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wakeupcall ◴[17 Oct 24 09:59 UTC] No.41868030[source]▶
Also running FF with strict privacy settings and several blockers. The annoyances are constantly increasing. Cloudflare, captchas, "we think you're a bot", constantly recurring cookie popups and absurd requirements are making me hate most of the websites and services I hit nowdays.

I tried for a long time to get around it, but now when I hit a website like this just close the tab and don't bother anymore.

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lioeters ◴[17 Oct 24 11:34 UTC] No.41868617[source]▶
Same here. I occasionally encounter websites that won't work with ad blockers, sometimes with Cloudflare involved, and I don't even bother with those sites anymore. Same with sites that display a cookie "consent" form without an option to not accept. I reject the entire site.

Site owners probably don't even see these bounced visits, and it's such a tiny percentage of visitors who do this that it won't make a difference. Meh, it's just another annoyance to be able to use the web on our own terms.

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1. capitainenemo ◴[17 Oct 24 17:57 UTC] No.41871966[source]▶
It's a tiny percentage of visitors, but a tech savvy one, and depending on your website, they could be a higher than average percentage of useful users or product purchasers. The impact could be disproportionate. What's frustrating is many websites don't even realise it is happening because the reporting from the intermediate (Cloudflare say) is inaccurate or incorrectly represents how it works. Fingerprinting has become integral to bot "protection". It's also frustrating when people think this can be drop in, and put it in front of APIs that are completely incapable of handling the challenge with no special casing (encountered on FedEx, GoFundMe), much like the RSS reader problem.