this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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Self-host or die trying !
still need em for DNS (I think)
There are alternate providers, like Cloud9 or Mullvad !
all my computer science and IT knowledge end when it comes to networks.
Honestly if you want to try it on Firefox, they have a few options built-in for alternative DNS !
And I feel your pain, my CS bachelor's had like 0 courses on Networking, fortunately my current Engineering degree courses have great stuff available, so I'm finally catching up !
Self hosting is why I use CF I like the tunnels for exposing myself to the internet.
Can't you "just" set up
openvpnor something ? I'm not sure what CloudFlare tunnels do, I'm a bit of a control freak so delegating to CF always seemed like it's against my principles or something x)(Genuinely curious, idk how that stuff works cause I never looked into it)
Fair question. It's definitely within my ability to "just" swap to something else, I'd prefer something self hosted that's foss. I will do it at some point, cf was a bit of a stop gap for me.
CF tunnels are similar to reverse proxies I believe. I started using their quick tunnels to expose things to the web and I found it very easy. A few things I wanted to host needed domains so I bought a domain from cf and get access to the permanent tunnels. Their tools are good and I know them from being the company that you call when you get ddos'd. I figured it would keep me safer while I was still figuring things out.
I feel like in my case I used them because of my ignorance. I know of openvpn i'll look into it.