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(all Cloudflared websites) Missing content-length header → harms the poor and environmentalists

People on a tight budget are limited to capped internet connections. So we disable images in our browser settings. Some environmentalists do the same to avoid energy waste. If we need to download a web-served file (image, PDF, or anything potentially large), we run this command:

$ curl -LI "$URL"

The HTTP headers should contain a content-length field. This enables us to know before we fetch something whether we can afford it. (Like seeing a price tag before buying something)

#Cloudflare has taken over at least ~20% of the web. It fucks us over in terms of digital rights in so many ways. And apparently it also makes the web less usable to poor people in two ways:

  • Cloudflare withholds content length information
  • Cloudflare blocks people behind CGNAT, which is commonly used in impoverished communities do to limited number of IPv4 addresses.
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