LoafyLemon

A steam deck might be a cheaper alternative.

Every service that disabled or limited the API has seen an increase in running costs, because people turn to scraping, which costs them more resources overall, and cannot be controlled by the site owners as easily.

Let’s be honest, though, hosting text files with a search bar isn’t that much expensive to justify a response like this.

It’s fine if they want to earn money, but then they should be upfront about it, and not making up stories about fluke running costs. I’d rather see a donation button.

Opensubtitles does not create the subtitles, that’s done by the community, which is being monetised and sub authors get nothing out of it.

Vastly reduces MITM attacks, and makes your traffic mostly invisible to the internet provider, be it a public WiFi, or a private network at a friend’s house.

Usually, cracking doesn’t typically result in the blocking of network features. This is why most groups suggest blocking the executable in the firewall.

ZRAM is used as swap space, it’s not just the compression that makes it stand out.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram

It’s called ZRAM.

Yes, it is essentially swap file, but they list it as RAM under settings like 6+2 RAM, which is at best misleading.

Xiaomi is also guilty of that.

Swap != RAM

I reckon that blocking ad blockers isn’t some extra countermeasure here. It’s actually right in line with what Manifest V3 and that new environment attestation system are all about. They’re basically making sure that if you tinker with crucial bits of the JavaScript – stuff they see as essential (like anti-adblock) – you won’t make it through the attestation and you’ll get blocked.

They don’t want to block all modifications because that would be a hindrance to many users, for example the visually impaired. However, anything affecting their bottom line will probably be blocked.

How that will affect Firefox? I don’t know, maybe nothing will change for us, or perhaps Google will block Firefox altogether. We certainly know they’re capable.

The Gecko Engine (Firefox), holds a user share of 4%. When compared to Chromium’s (Google Chrome and its clones) whooping 72% (roughly) user share, it’s clear that Firefox has limited relevance to their business strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-202011-202011-bar.png

Some countries don’t allow interruptive ads. Cherish it while you still can!

No problems with Mozilla VPN

Remember when some people said we’re nuts thinking Google will try to ban ad blockers with manifest v3? Yeah.

Look, I get where you’re coming from, but saying Cloudflare collects everything just because they have some access to data is a bit of a stretch. Sure, they might have some data for security and optimization, but that doesn’t mean they’re hoarding every little detail about users. They’re more like the bouncer at the club, keeping an eye on things without memorizing everyone’s life story. So, while they might have a bit of info, calling it “collecting everything” is like saying a bouncer knows everything about the party – it’s just not the case.

That’s not true at all, though. I can see only the basic information, such as:

• Page load time
• Number of visitors per country
• Browser header and user agent
• Referral (if any)

That’s all there is to it. I don’t have access to IP addresses, location data, or behavioural information. I only have access to the necessary information that enables my website to function seamlessly.

I employ VPN, TOR, and additionally, I manage sites utilizing CloudFlare. I can tell you this much: There aren’t many alternative services that safeguard your website and gather statistics while respecting the privacy of the end user. CloudFlare even provides onion routes for TOR users, which I’ve naturally activated for my website. Thus, the issue doesn’t rest with CloudFlare; it’s a tool. The true issue lies with the webmasters abusing their power and using overzealous rulesets.

They could easily apply the same rulesets by utilizing nginx to proxy the traffic and implementing blocks on their side, avoiding CloudFlare altogether. The only distinction would be the increased expenses and a different host, nothing more.

Centralization is an issue, but it’s not Cloudflare to blame, it’s the ISPs and governing bodies. Consider this: who’s the one who initiated the initial block in the first place?

I don’t see the need to vilify Cloudflare. So far, they have shown nothing but respect towards net neutrality, fighting against bad internet practices (like Google), and even standing up to ISPs and governments to protect their users, whether they’re pirates or not.

They have been around long enough (10+ years) to let you judge them and their services through their actions, not rumours.

It’s in the first paragraph.

In 2022, rightsholders obtained permission in Austria to block several pirate site domains and a list of IP addresses that actually belonged to Cloudflare. ISPs had no choice but to comply with the court’s instructions which took out countless Cloudflare customers in Austria. According to reviews conducted by local telecoms regulator TKK, the IP address blocking violated net neutrality regulations and will no longer be allowed.

In other words, only domain blocking will be allowed, IP blocking will not be permitted, and cloudflare IPs must be unblocked again.