Tag Archive for: CloudFlare

NET Stock: Cloudflare Solves the Internet’s Need for Speed and Security

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Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) investors had to ride a roller coaster for the first five months of 2021. However, since mid-May, NET stock has been in growth mode, posting gains of over 50% from its low point. On July 9, it closed at $108.97, a new all-time high, though it has since eased back. Still within spitting distance of that record close, will NET stock run out of momentum, or does it still have room for growth?

Close up of Cloudflare logo at the Company's headquarters

Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com

I would argue that Cloudflare is a company with the right product mix at the right time to continue fueling long-term growth. Online shopping is only continuing to grow in popularity. Other services are moving online, including the transition from cable TV to streaming video services.

Cloudflare provides the critical services that keep online services fast, and keep them safe. It’s even a big part of exploding IoT (Internet of Things) growth. This Portfolio Grader “B” rated stock is up nearly 500% from its September 2019 public debut. Given the business Cloudflare is in, the stock growth may just be getting started.

The Importance of Website Speed

One of CloudFlare’s primary lines of business is being a CDN, or content delivery network. That may not sound exciting, but it is an increasingly important service — and one that was in the spotlight during the pandemic.

Cloudflare uses local servers to host critical website services so that users enjoy the speed they expect. Even if a user is logging in on a PC across the country from a company’s main data center, they hit a Cloudflare regional server first so there is no lag and no overload. That ensures online shopping, video conferencing, and other web-based activities offer a positive experience for all users, regardless of their location.

Now, more than ever, slow-loading websites are simply not acceptable. As Forbes’ Jason Hall wrote in 2019:

If a page loads slowly, many people will give up and go somewhere else. That can mean a loss of traffic to your site and a loss of dollars in your pocket. Your conversion rates may suffer, and your bounce rates — the number of people who leave your site after only visiting one page — may increase.

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Cloudflare rallies the troops to fight off another so-called patent troll – TechCrunch

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Nearly four years ago, we wrote about a battle between Cloudflare, the San Francisco-based internet security and performance company, and Blackbird Technologies, a firm that quickly amassed dozens of patents, then began using them to file dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against companies, including Cloudflare.

The suit was typical in every way, except how Cloudflare responded to it. Unlike many targets of similar lawsuits that opt to settle, Cloudflare fought back, asking very publicly for help in locating prior art that would not only invalidate the broad patent that Blackbird was using to sue Cloudflare, but to invalidate all of Blackbird’s patents. The public answered the call, and two years and 275 unique submissions later, the case against Cloudflare was dismissed and Blackbird’s operations were diminished.

One might surmise that given the stink that Cloudflare raised, other patent trolls might choose an easier target. Yet last month, Cloudflare was sued yet again, this time by Sable Networks, a “company that doesn’t appear to have operated a real business in nearly ten years — relying on patents that don’t come close to the nature of our business or the services we provide,” as says Doug Kramer, general counsel of CloudFlare.

Unsurprisingly, Cloudflare isn’t going to take this newest action lying down. This morning, after revealing the lawsuit publicly, it invited the engineering community to again “turn the tables” on patent trolls by inviting them to participate in a crowdsourced effort to find evidence of prior art to invalidate the “ancient, 20-year-old patents” that Cloudlflare says that Sable is is “trying to stretch . . . lightyears beyond what they were meant to cover.”

Cloudflare is also offering a $100,000 bounty to be split among entrants who provide the most useful prior-art references that can be used in challenging the validity of all of Sable’s patents, not just those being asserted against Cloudflare.

The idea is to deal a big enough blow to Sable that not only is its case against Cloudflare hobbled but also future cases against other entities.

“We feel fortunate that we didn’t run into one of these cases…

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Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 (for Android) – Review 2020

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Cloudflare is best known for its network infrastructure and security technology, but its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver is aimed squarely at consumers. This service hides your DNS requests, protecting important information from your ISP. The optional Warp feature seeks to improve your browsing speeds, while offering some—but not all—of the protections of a VPN. While 1.1.1.1 and Warp will improve your online privacy, we were surprised by the incompatibility issues we encountered with this product.

What Is 1.1.1.1?

It’s important to say at the outset that 1.1.1.1 is not a VPN. A VPN encrypts all your device’s data and sends that information to a server controlled by the VPN company. This process hides your true IP address and prevents your ISP—or any spy on your network—from monitoring your traffic. For more on VPNs, you can read our piece on what a VPN is and why you need one.

Instead of concerning itself with all your traffic, 1.1.1.1 only focuses on domain name system (DNS) requests. DNS is like a phone book translating human-readable URLs into machine-readable IP addresses. Normally, your ISP handles DNS resolution and can therefore monitor your online activities as a result. But not if you’re using 1.1.1.1, which takes over DNS resolution and thereby cuts snoopy ISPs out of the loop.

Part of the argument for 1.1.1.1 and similar products is that VPNs are overkill for most people, and their protection comes at a high cost to performance. While a secure DNS resolver only secures DNS requests, the wide adoption of HTTPS means that much of your online activity is already encrypted.

Pricing and toggle for Warp+ and 1.1.1.1

The situation for 1.1.1.1 gets a little muddier with the introduction of its Warp feature, however. Warp creates a secure connection to Cloudflare’s nearest server, and then out to the internet—much like a traditional VPN. Warp does secure your data from anyone on the same network as you and from your ISP, but it doesn’t hide your public IP address. The company says that Warp will always be free, as will its 1.1.1.1 service.

The paid version of Warp is Warp+ Unlimited. This does everything that 1.1.1.1 and Warp do, but it also claims to provide a faster internet experience. When you…

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