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> Despite all of that mobile browsing activity, desktop devices are more commonly used for checkout actions. People seem to browse more on mobile, committing to

> Despite all of that mobile browsing activity, desktop devices are more commonly used for checkout actions. People seem to browse more on mobile, committing to buy more often with desktop... Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? Regardless of the reason, using standalone browsers (as opposed to apps), especially on desktops, gives users more (this is relative) freedom and control to avoid being tracked and also block ads and annoyances, resulting in a much better user experience. That's something I'd always encourage. P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month.

icebraining 8y ago
Re: Cloudflare plans, their paid plans also see the traffic; at most you can get a dedicated cert, or even hide the cert from them, but the traffic is always visible, since their CDN system pretty much relies on that.
- r1ch 8y ago
  I think the parent comment is referring to the "Flexible SSL" option where Cloudflare does HTTPS on the frontend but HTTP over the internet to the origin. Customers like it since they get the "green lock" in one click and no one can tell it's actually insecure. You could speculate Cloudflare are only analyzing this outbound unencrypted traffic, but they are of course seeing everything as you rightly pointed out.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Okay, but you don't need to pay to get Full SSL.
dewey 8y ago
Is $20 really that steep for that? I'd say it's amazingly cheap for what you get.
- Moru 8y ago
  Yes, but do I need all that or could I live with a small subset of it for cheaper?
c22 8y ago
> Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? I don't know about everyone else, but I make a conscious effort to "check out" on a pc instead of the phone because it's much easier to fill out the litany of forms.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
> P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month. I was just thinking about this when I read the headline. I also wish they would provide some less pricier plans. We used to use them for private servers, lots of skids like to "DDoS" (they pay for a service to do it for them) when you don't make them admins or you ban them for scamming other users, etc.

icebraining 8y ago

Re: Cloudflare plans, their paid plans also see the traffic; at most you can get a dedicated cert, or even hide the cert from them, but the traffic is always visible, since their CDN system pretty much relies on that.

r1ch 8y ago
I think the parent comment is referring to the "Flexible SSL" option where Cloudflare does HTTPS on the frontend but HTTP over the internet to the origin. Customers like it since they get the "green lock" in one click and no one can tell it's actually insecure. You could speculate Cloudflare are only analyzing this outbound unencrypted traffic, but they are of course seeing everything as you rightly pointed out.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Okay, but you don't need to pay to get Full SSL.

dewey 8y ago

Is $20 really that steep for that? I'd say it's amazingly cheap for what you get.

Moru 8y ago
Yes, but do I need all that or could I live with a small subset of it for cheaper?

c22 8y ago

> Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? I don't know about everyone else, but I make a conscious effort to "check out" on a pc instead of the phone because it's much easier to fill out the litany of forms.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

> P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month. I was just thinking about this when I read the headline. I also wish they would provide some less pricier plans. We used to use them for private servers, lots of skids like to "DDoS" (they pay for a service to do it for them) when you don't make them admins or you ban them for scamming other users, etc.