The Lie or Half-Truth of Clownflare (or Equivalents) Improving Things
It may seem "cheap" (temporarily*) and "fast", but that's just bait
Without using an overhyped CDN (like Clownflare) all traffic will always go from - and though - our own server, not some meddling third party. It'll serve fast to peers in London but it can be a lot slower (high latency) if you're in Tokyo. This is a price we're happy to pay in order to avoid "some meddling third party" (as named above).
As it turns out, and as we pointed out yesterday, any such meddling third party may be blocking users from your site for using the 'wrong' browser (because Pale Moon (or similar) is very very very evil!).
Over the years some people asked why Techrights does not use a CDN, which isn't the same as caching pages locally with Squid or Varnish (we did that before). FOSS Force once suggested that we use Clownflare (nope, Clownflare isn't FOSS, it is even FOSS-hostile).
The globe is large, packets take time to travel around it (more so when crucial cables get cut), but the risk associated with outsourcing far outweighs the inconvenience of waiting for some page to come from London to Tokyo. █
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* Someone is paying for it and won't pay for that forever (The Debt of Clownflare (Cloudflare Inc.) More Than Trebled Since the Lock-downs and the Company is Unable to Make Money; Clownflare Isn't Free and Its CEO Openly Boasted They'd Start Charging Everyone to Offset the Considerable Losses (It's a Trap, It's Just Bait); Clownflare (Cloudflare) Debt Grows, Losses Continue).