What is Cloudflare ? How does it help webmasters ?

[Digital Doctor]

http://www.cloudflare.com/

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It says it gives resources to small sites that were only previously available to large sites.
Anyone research this one before ?

 

[Darfuria]

Seems like some sort of CDN + security suite for websites. Not sure on the product, but what a great video!

 

[Jeffin]

Looks interesting but looks like good sites can get blocked by some countries because of bad ones in the same cloudflare IP.

 

[damoncloudflare]

Hi,

I actually work for CloudFlare (I promise not to spam the forums).

"Seems like some sort of CDN + security suite for websites."
This is a pretty solid description of what we do.

"but looks like good sites can get blocked by some countries"
This issue would largely impact sites that have a lot of traffic from China and/or are in China (working on a fix; have a workaround for sites in China).

 

[Digital Doctor]

Hi Damon: Feel free to educate me about Cloudflare.
With the recent increase in spam, have sites with Cloudflare done better ?

 

[damoncloudflare]

Hi Digital Doctor,

Many of the sites on CloudFlare have seen significant drops in spam activity making it to their sites (some have reported going from hundreds daily to almost zero). We use a variety of data sources to identify potential threats/spammers, including Project Honey Pot, so visitors identified as potential risks will be presented with a challenge page before they can even access your site (have to pass the captcha to enter).

A couple of customer reviews/mentions mentioning spam specifically:
Review 1
Twitter

Since we also act as a CDN, while also filtering a lot of junk traffic, you would also see improvements in page loading times & bandwidth savings.

 

[AnthonyCea]

So basically this is a web application for folks that really don't have a competent server administrator who can run sophisticated software firewalls ?

Now that is a giant market for sure.

 

[glorify]

I'd like more info as well.

 

[damoncloudflare]

Hi Edrondol,

Thanks. You're more than welcome to ask me any questions. Might seem confusing in the beginning...I'm pretty easy to track down

 

[TerminalAddict]

I've signed up .. looks like an interesting idea.
I'll be interested to see/hear how POST data works?

 

[TerminalAddict]

So basically this is a web application for folks that really don't have a competent server administrator who can run sophisticated software firewalls ?

Now that is a giant market for sure.

I'm a competent server administrator . .contributor to mandriva, php3, and now host many debian machines.
But I live in a country that essentially sits on the end of a single piece of fibre from San Francisco .. which means our international traffic sucks arse (think ping times of 250 to the USA)

I have a number of servers here in NZ; if cloudflare CDN can alleviate some of that ****ty expereince for me, its a winner.

I don't have a competent internet connection, and will not likley have one for a while, although there is one company trying ( http://www.pacificfibre.net/ ) .. last estimate $900 million .. we wait patiently

 

[Sir nick]

I have used it for a total of 4 months. Was really good.

 

[AnthonyCea]

I'm a competent server administrator . .contributor to mandriva, php3, and now host many debian machines.
But I live in a country that essentially sits on the end of a single piece of fibre from San Francisco .. which means our international traffic sucks arse (think ping times of 250 to the USA)

I have a number of servers here in NZ; if cloudflare CDN can alleviate some of that ****ty expereince for me, its a winner.

I don't have a competent internet connection, and will not likley have one for a while, although there is one company trying ( http://www.pacificfibre.net/ ) .. last estimate $900 million .. we wait patiently

So what is this service going to do that ProjectHoneyPot IP filtering services do for free ?

 

[TerminalAddict]

its the CDN I'm interested in .. not the security

 

[Paul B]

I've just deleted a bunch of off topic posts which were mainly just bickering and detracting from the subject.

Normal service is now resumed.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I think many potential users don't know the acronym CDN. wikipedia

A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a system of computers containing copies of data, placed at various points in a network so as to maximize bandwidth for access to the data from clients throughout the network. A client accesses a copy of the data near to the client, as opposed to all clients accessing the same central server, so as to avoid bottlenecks near that server.

 

[AnthonyCea]

Many scripts are building in CDN hooks now, I just saw a directory script producer today advertising this.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Many scripts are building in CDN hooks now, I just saw a directory script producer today advertising this.

Should xenforo get into the CDN game ?

 

[AnthonyCea]

Should xenforo get into the CDN game ?

phpmydirectory.com/features.html

• 
  

  • Google maps marker is now displayed properly in the admin area coordinates selector.
  • Fixed location sorting
  • Remember me feature fixed. Was not adhering to admin setting.
  • Banner type label in admin banner manager fixed.
  • The listing website is now displayed properly in the vCard.
  • PayPal fixes.
  • CRON now runs on schedule more closely (performance improved)
  • Listing category/locations counts improved/fixed
  • Fixed banner linking issues
  • Fixed password strength meter display issue on user edit account form
  • Invoice email now sends when a user changes their order
  • One time discounts no longer apply to recurring invoices.
  • Free order renewing fixed.
  • Tax level 2 now properly gets passed to payment gateways.
  • Banner type validation fixed when a user adds a banner.

  • Content Delivery Network option added (set a CDN URL in defaults.php)

 

[jgas]

It's free, you get your site faster, and you get less spammers: where the deal with the devil?
I understood that you have to change the dns, and that's all, so all off you traffic is routed to the "filters" of cloudflare, but i can't understand why it is free...