403 error · Issue #175 · httpjamesm/AnonymousOverflow
github.com
What's Happening? Error: Received a non-OK status code 403 when trying to use AnonymousOverflow. It seems upstream started using CloudFlare and this is causing issues How to reproduce: Go to any in...

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21966139

A lot of tech knowledge is jailed in #StackOverflow, #StackExchange. Too much. The tech world is very dependant on this single gate keeper. This week, freedom to access SE’s indispensible tech knowledge has been lost.

Timeline

  • pre-2016: SE jailed itself inside Cloudflare
  • ? - At some point SE became “openly” accessible and Cloudflare-free. But a massive #cookieWall blocked content and it was broken to a large extent. That is, in some browsers there was no way to get past the cookie wall.
  • 2022 - #AnonymousOverflow was founded. This front-end platform made the cookie wall problem go away regardless of your browser and anonymity.
  • 2023 - SE reverted back to Cloudflare, effectively making the need for AnonymousOverflow more dire; more important.
  • This week - SE tunes the Cloudflare settings to aggressively block AnonymousOverflow instances, ultimately killing off free-world access to tech information.