Ever since the internet was invented, the way web pages were displayed in the visitor's browser was done through client-server communication. This method worked great for a while until certain individuals with malicious intent discovered they could overload the server by submitting more requests than it can handle. This overload would disrupt the service and affect the user's experience negatively, ultimately causing difficulties for website owners to deliver their web content in a safe, fast, and reliable way to their users.
What is Cloudflare?
Thus, CloudFlare came to be with the sole purpose of eliminating this ever-growing thread and making the internet a safer place. When configured for your website Cloudflare serves as an intermediary between your computer and the server and also it utilizes a broad set of features. These features aim to not only make the connection between the two machines more secure but also optimize the web content so that it is delivered faster. Here is a little glimpse of the above-mentioned features awaiting you when using Cloudflare:
- First and foremost, utilize an excellent CDN service. In the bigger picture, Cloudflare can be viewed as a CDN provider, however, they have outgrown this term through the years by expanding their service and integrating other features. What a CDN service does is it offers caching for the static content of your websites, such as images, pictures, JS, HTML, and CSS files. Cloudflare has a considerable number of edge nodes distributed in almost every country on the globe. When you are using their service, the mentioned static content is getting cached and stored within these edge nodes. Each time your site is visited, that content will get pulled from Cloudflare's edge node instead of from your hosting server, increasing the loading speed of your website.
- DDoS attack prevention. Cloudflare has a system in check which continuously monitors traffic on your site. Should it detect a spike or an unusual increase in bandwidth, it starts investigating whether it is coming from a legitimate source. If this is not the case, this system will start "teaching" itself and adapting to the attack so it can start it at the edge nodes, before it even reaches your server.
- Cloudflare provides an Automatic network gateway between IPv4 and IPv6. Unfortunately, both protocols are not compatible, and connecting from a device using iPv4 to another one using IPv6 is not possible using standard means. While using their service, this incompatibility is solved on a DNS level and can happen seamlessly with a setting within their client area.
- Cloudflare gives you access to a comprehensive Analytics Dashboard, allowing you to track the traffic towards your website. Please do not mistake this for Google Analytics - both have a completely different purpose. The Analytics Dashboard within CloudFlare will report any problems related to the load and resources of your server(this includes both traffic, malicious traffic as well as actual visitors traffic). Google Analytics will show data about the organic, non-bot traffic allowing you to use this knowledge and figure out monetization schemes.
- Free SSL certificates. Any domain that is routed through Cloudflare automatically takes advantage of their free SSL certificates. You need to be careful when setting up Cloudflare's SSL as there are additional settings to consider within the dashboard for it to work correctly. Our Technical Support team's experience in the field can help you solve these types of issues should you ever face them. Please, be sure to contact them by submitting a ticket from your Client Area.
This sounds amazing! How can I use Cloudflare?
Naturally, as Cloudflare has a vision of the internet being a safer, faster, and more reliable place, they have made the application of their service utterly accessible to everyone by making their service COMPLETELY FREE and easy to configure. All you need to do is sign up for their service.
We at HostArmada have a goal of our own. We want to get rid of all the additional burdens a website's owner has to face that deviate him from working on his website and expanding his business. All our clients are eligible for a free and seamless CloudFlare configuration from our technical team. All they need to do is submit a ticket through the client area, providing our team with the login credentials of their Cloudflare account. Alternatively, they can request our team to create an account for them, configure their domain name, and then provide them access to the Cloudflare dashboard.