CloudFlare discussion thread

[Drugwash]

Just got blocked by Cloudflare

Humans invented the machine (the bots).
Machine started crawling all over the web.
Humans started blocking the Machine from web access.
Machine is now retaliating by blocking humans' web access.

According to that ancient Chinese curse we seem to be living in interesting times.

[back2themoon]

Just got blocked by Cloudflare on https://windowsreport.com/send-receive- ... indows-10/

Link takes me right in, no CF check at all.

[Gemmaugr]

Just got blocked by Cloudflare on https://windowsreport.com/send-receive- ... indows-10/

Link takes me right in, no CF check at all.

Weird. CF being their usual A/B testing perhaps. I tested it both from the Brave search link and from my PM forum's link, as well as changing VPN from Europe to United States, and I still get blocked.

[Drugwash]

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

(emphasis added)
User may have tried to post something on that site (see the message submittal form at the bottom). We don't know as they didn't mention it. It does seem like an aggressive approach to accessing the site but... anything's possible. Including their getting way more private information regarding the specific machine that was trying to access their site so that any and all further attempts from the same machine would be filtered/blocked despite any IP change.

For what it's worth I got there cleanly too without any CF interaction, on Linux Mint 19.2 using Pale Moon 34.2.2 x64 GTK3 SSE2 self-built. But looking in RequestPolicy's settings I see cloudflare domain was not allowed at all.

Screenshot from 2026-05-28 15-11-47_edit.png

[Gemmaugr]

User may have tried to post something on that site (see the message submittal form at the bottom). We don't know as they didn't mention it. It does seem like an aggressive approach to accessing the site but... anything's possible. Including their getting way more private information regarding the specific machine that was trying to access their site so that any and all further attempts from the same machine would be filtered/blocked despite any IP change.

For what it's worth I got there cleanly too without any CF interaction, on Linux Mint 19.2 using Pale Moon 34.2.2 x64 GTK3 SSE2 self-built. But looking in RequestPolicy's settings I see cloudflare domain was not allowed at all.
Screenshot from 2026-05-28 15-11-47_edit.png

I can't even get in (nor to windowsreport.com either) to post anything there. I've locked down PM so many hardware stuff can't be viewed (https://www.deviceinfo.me/), like CPU and GPU and RAM. They can get my OS though. I also block cloudflare by default btw.

[Drugwash]

I've locked down PM so many hardware stuff can't be viewed [...] I also block cloudflare by default btw.

Maybe you're just holding off too much, and precisely that makes them suspect something fishy on your part. For what it's worth you may just appear as a bot to them, and as such they may rightfully deny your access.

Please note I'm not trying to tell you how to manage your machine/browser/etc. But at times these gatekeepers do rely on much more private information than the user is willing to provide, and this can lead to such impossibility of accessing certain sites. So you could either step down on your blocks (generally or per domain), or on occasion accept your inability to access certain site(s).

[Gemmaugr]

Maybe you're just holding off too much, and precisely that makes them suspect something fishy on your part. For what it's worth you may just appear as a bot to them, and as such they may rightfully deny your access.

Please note I'm not trying to tell you how to manage your machine/browser/etc. But at times these gatekeepers do rely on much more private information than the user is willing to provide, and this can lead to such impossibility of accessing certain sites. So you could either step down on your blocks (generally or per domain), or on occasion accept your inability to access certain site(s).

I don't feel in the mood to troubleshoot this sites particular abuse of cloudflare's waffly WAF/rules, and it's rarely happened before (with a total block), so I just won't use that site. It's still noteworthy to post about it though.

[Drugwash]

That's your prerogative. PM devs won't have any say in this though.

In my completely personal opinion CloudFlare is a cancer that should be eradicated from the web before it destroys all human-web interaction, but I suspect that won't happen anytime soon - if ever.

[back2themoon]

But looking in RequestPolicy's settings I see cloudflare domain was not allowed at all.

That screenshot is a bit strange. I mean, there's no way you'd ever pass a CF challenge by blocking *cloudflare.com*. You were simply not "served" the check at all (as in my case). Not sure if "Cloudflare=blocked then: fallback" can be a thing.

You also seem to allow cloudflareinsights.com which is essentially CF's telemetry. You can safely block this. The checks will not be affected.

[Drugwash]

You were simply not "served" the check at all

Exactly.

You also seem to allow cloudflareinsights.com

That is most likely a global setting, I didn't touch it for that particular domain or anything. It is also allowed in NoScript (together with cloudflare.com).

Thing is, we cannot assume or guess on what basis exactly do these websites allow or block a certain user. CloudFlare may be one factor but there may also be other cumulative factors before or after it that dictate how they filter out user access. I believe this is why a lot of users claim the inability of accessing certain sites/domains while others have absolutely no problems with those.

[frostknight]

I can't even get in (nor to windowsreport.com either) to post anything there. I've locked down PM so many hardware stuff can't be viewed (https://www.deviceinfo.me/), like CPU and GPU and RAM. They can get my OS though. I also block cloudflare by default btw.

I tried, same result.

Also, slant.co has same result too.

[Gemmaugr]

I can't even get in (nor to windowsreport.com either) to post anything there. I've locked down PM so many hardware stuff can't be viewed (https://www.deviceinfo.me/), like CPU and GPU and RAM. They can get my OS though. I also block cloudflare by default btw.

I tried, same result.

Also, slant.co has same result too.

Slant.co works for me, without any CF interference at all! Super weird. Have you also "locked down" the browser btw?

[Night Wing]

I've never visited Slant before. I opened up a new tab, typed in Slant's address and the site opened for me without even a CF prompt. Took about one half of one second of time.

[frostknight]

Slant.co works for me, without any CF interference at all! Super weird. Have you also "locked down" the browser btw?

No idea what you mean by that.

[deviantwerld]

I don't know if this has been reported yet, i have a new cloudflare issue:

when the cloudflare wheel stops at a square, i check it, & it says success, then sends me to the login page, &
once i enter my data & login (everything's correct, it sends me back to this shit cloudflare verification page on a looping process.

i tried reseting ip, deleting cookies before, same crap..

[back2themoon]

i tried reseting ip, deleting cookies before, same crap..

Try on a clean profile. Perhaps an extension is interfering?

[deviantwerld]

no back2themoon, nothing happened to my profile apart from updating to the latest pale moon version.
it's cloudflare, at 1000%.

[Nuck-TH]

They also throw rate limit page if you click faster than lethargic turtle.

[back2themoon]

no back2themoon, nothing happened to my profile apart from updating to the latest pale moon version. it's cloudflare, at 1000%.

No one said something "happened" to your profile. So, you are 1000% certain without having tried a clean profile.

Any links to the website that fails to load, or are we supposed to guess that, too?

[deviantwerld]

"Any links to the website that fails to load, or are we supposed to guess that, too?"

it's the login process that isn't successful, not link access.

& because i did nothing besides updating palemoon, it's unlikely my profile, for my part.