What is Cloudflare and how do we use it?
Cloudflare is a global network that sits between your website's visitors and our servers.
01In short
Cloudflare is a global network that sits between your website's visitors and our servers. Every request to your website passes through Cloudflare first, before it ever reaches our infrastructure. Think of it as a security desk at the entrance: every visitor gets checked before being let through.
The path of every request to your website
This works the same way whether your site is static (like a simple company website) or dynamic (like a shop or a web app with logins). Cloudflare always sits in front.
02How Brother Labs uses Cloudflare
Your server IP stays private
Normally, every server has a public IP address that anyone on the internet can find. With our setup, all traffic runs through Cloudflare (this is called proxied). Only Cloudflare's IP is publicly visible, the real address of our servers stays hidden. This makes it much harder for anyone to target the infrastructure directly.
DDoS protection
Cloudflare automatically detects and filters large-scale attack attempts (known as DDoS attacks), where someone tries to overwhelm a website with a flood of requests. This happens in the background without any manual intervention needed from us.
Bot detection with adaptive challenges
Cloudflare continuously distinguishes between real visitors and automated bots. Depending on how suspicious a request looks, Cloudflare automatically adjusts how strictly it checks, ranging from invisible background checks to a brief verification step a visitor might see (like “checking if you're human”). This adapts dynamically, based on the current threat patterns Cloudflare observes.
Domain and DNS management
Your domain is fully managed through Cloudflare. All DNS records live there, and all traffic is proxied, meaning it's routed through the Cloudflare network instead of going straight to the server.
03What this means for you
- Protection around the clockYour website is automatically shielded against the most common types of attacks, without you needing to do anything.
- Applies to every kind of pageWhether your website just displays content or has more complex features like logins and forms, the protection is the same.
- Occasional security checksVisitors (or you) may occasionally see a quick verification page. This is normal and a sign the protection is working, not an error.
- No extra effort on your endThe configuration is handled by us, there's nothing for you to set up or maintain.
- Often better performance, especially for international visitorsCloudflare caches a lot of content at server locations around the globe. If your website is also used by visitors from other countries or continents, they'll get content served from a location near them instead of every request having to travel all the way to our server. This makes the site noticeably faster, no matter where someone is accessing it from.
04Frequently asked questions
Does Cloudflare slow my website down?
No, usually the opposite. Cloudflare often serves content from a location closer to the visitor and filters out harmful traffic before it ever reaches our servers.
Why do I sometimes see a “verification” screen?
That's Cloudflare's bot detection. It only kicks in when a request looks unusual, for example due to odd behavior or traffic from regions with elevated attack activity. Most visitors never see it.
Does this make my data more secure?
Cloudflare protects the connection and infrastructure from outside attacks. It doesn't replace measures like encryption within the application itself, but it meaningfully adds to them.
Write to us at hello@brotherlabs.ch and we'll walk you through it for your specific project.