Currently, this forum is not SSL encrypted, which is something that should be fixed sooner or later. I haven’t heard any complaints about the missing encryption, but I guess that having it would make the forum look more professional, attractive, and secure (and hopefully also be more professional, attractive, and secure).
In principle, I would be ready to pay for the added security, but I was informed that there are possibilities to get SSL certificates from serious SSL authorities for free. I’ve found two options which look quite interesting and very well worth considering:
While Let’s Encrypt looks like a really good and simple solution for SSL, CloudFlare has the advantage of being a CDN (Content Delivery Network) which should come with the advantage of speeding up the forum a bit. I find it quite astonishing that CloudFlare offers a free CDN service and free SSL! Somehow it sounds too good to be true, so I expect that there may be some catch to it. What I’ve read so far points in the direction that the performance of the free Cloudflare CDN is bad compared to other CDNs, but that’s pretty much to be expected. But who knows, perhaps their freemium model is so good that it actually works out pretty nicely for them.
Anyway, at the current rate the Fractal Future Forum doesn’t get a huge amount of traffic, so there’s no definite need for a CDN. Do you have any preferences for the SSL certificate authority the F3 should use in the future? Are there any reasons not to use Let’s Encrypt or CloudFlare?
CloudFlare has gotten worse this year. Now, there are endless captcha loops because of CloudFlare that prevent non-malicious users from accessing websites. If you rely on CloudFlare for this website, then expect significantly less people becoming new members here. CloudFlare has become an unprofessional mob that never removed the endless captcha loop problem. Which is why some business owners removed CloudFlare’s system when customers were prevented access on websites. Also, I want to point out that CloudFlare is an Orwellian privacy nightmare preventing people who use anti-fingerprinting extensions from accessing websites.
Independent journalists like Julian Assange who don’t promote American propaganda are having a harder time accessing the internet without giving up their online anonymity. Online anonymity is important to prevent tyrannical government authorities from spying on people. Mass surveillance is a human right violation as a result. The internet used to allow more online anonymity when allowing adblockers, V.P.N.s, anti-fingerprinting extensions, etc. But tyrannical government authorities are getting ruthlessly greedy by not allowing people online anonymity. So, more internet service providers are Orwellianistically spying on people to benefit ruthlessly greedy government authorities. These ruthlessly greedy government authorities don’t care about human rights. CloudFlare is not helping to protect human rights by making the internet less accessible from its privacy nightmare system.