checking if this site connection is secure

so frustrating to see how they describe what is happening, when it is not true. they claim that they make a check for me, for the user, to see if it is safe to connect to that site, by 'checking the connection', if 'it is secure'. while if it's https, and there is this lock, it's secure.

what they are actually checking is do i behave like a bot, and am i secure for the website? and they tell me they check if the website is secure for me.

i would even say disgusting. not funny to me now.

🐙 norayr

2023-07-22 · 10 months ago

5 Comments ↓

☕️ Morgan · 2023-07-23 at 10:23:

I guess you mean the cloudflare one? Yeah, the message is misleading.

I'd love to know more about how it works and why it gets triggered. I think it's part of their anti-bot/anti-DDOS setup. To be fair to them I do think they actually deal with crazy huge DDOS attacks, so it's not just for fun.

📷 billsmugs · 2023-07-23 at 10:53:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets annoyed by that message! I agree with Morgan that I do have some sympathy for the websites that use it, but I wish they would change the wording.

It's definitely not as bad as the "we care about your privacy" popups that directly disprove that statement by then making you untick 10 boxes (across two tabs) before carefully clicking the tiny 'save' link that's next to a giant 'accept all' button.

🐙 norayr [OP] · 2023-07-23 at 13:03:

yes, for me it is triggered because i usually use tor to access everything. i hate knowing that my isp knows which requests do i do and keeps them.

also my requests to my own servers can identify me. if i only were doing let's say youtube requests, then everybody does those. but i connect to this or that servers that only i connect.

just thought about it - we have no tor for gemini.

🐙 norayr [OP] · 2023-07-23 at 13:06:

or maybe we have? i use pidgin with tor socks proxy. i found gemini, gopher and http proxy fields in lagrange preferences but not sure what would happen if i enter local tor socks port, and what is the format to enter.

on maemo leste i can easily route everything via tor, so i wonder, i'll try to use that system wide routing and use lagrange (i am the author of lagrange package for maemo).

🛞 Troler · 2023-07-23 at 16:33:

It makes me feel like I am doing something wrong. In a weird sense it brings up memories of accesing shady websites, when you are a child, or trying to download a video game from shady websites. The annoying popups on those websites remind me of it.

It is annoying, even more when it forces you to complete a captcha to prodecede.