海角乱伦

05/28/25 @bepmoht.聽 I've noticed this at random times during the day with various websites, although never this one, and not usually the same one more often than once or twice.聽 I've always figured that it had something to do with my VPN, which I have connected for security on all my devices, all the time.聽 But that's just a guess.

I'll be interested to hear whether others are experiencing on expat.com.

Hello all,

I will follow up with the team to find out if there is an explanation for this. 馃槈

Cheers,

Cheryl

海角乱伦 team

May 29, 2025

Here is information on Cloudflare (from ChatGPT) - in summary, this is a web protection tool.聽 Note: VPNs tend to be in a trust zone - hence the explanation to @abthree's experience.

**Cloudflare** is a web infrastructure and website security company that provides a range of services to improve website performance, enhance security, and ensure availability. Here's a breakdown of what Cloudflare is and what it does:

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### 馃敀 **1. Security Services**

Cloudflare helps protect websites from various online threats, such as:

* **DDoS Protection**: Mitigates distributed denial-of-service attacks that flood servers with traffic.

* **WAF (Web Application Firewall)**: Filters and blocks malicious traffic targeting vulnerabilities in web apps.

* **Bot Management**: Identifies and blocks harmful bots while allowing good ones.

* **SSL/TLS Encryption**: Provides HTTPS encryption to secure data between users and websites.

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### 鈿� **2. Performance Optimization**

Cloudflare improves website load times and responsiveness through:

* **Content Delivery Network (CDN)**: Caches content on servers around the world to serve users from the nearest location.

* **Image Optimization**: Compresses and resizes images automatically to reduce bandwidth and improve loading speeds.

* **Load Balancing**: Distributes traffic across multiple servers for efficiency and redundancy.

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### 馃實 **3. Reliable Availability**

Cloudflare ensures websites remain available even during traffic spikes or server issues by:

* **Always Online**: Serves a cached version of your site if the origin server is down.

* **Anycast Network**: Routes users to the closest data center to minimize latency and maximize uptime.

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### 馃敡 **4. Developer and Enterprise Tools**

Cloudflare also provides tools for developers and businesses:

* **Cloudflare Workers**: A serverless platform to run JavaScript at the edge.

* **DNS Services**: Fast, secure DNS with built-in DDoS protection.

* **Zero Trust Networking**: Secure access to internal apps without traditional VPNs.

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### In Summary:

Cloudflare acts like a middle layer between a website and its visitors. It speeds up access, protects against attacks, and keeps sites available and secure. It's used by millions of websites, from small blogs to large enterprises.

Hello,

In addition to information provided above,聽 this security check is activated automatically by cloudflare to identify genuine users and bots to block bot requests and avoid server overload in case of flood (too many requests).