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UPGRADED: Forum Performance + Anti Spam. Any bugs? Registration issues?

Posted: 17 Feb 2021, 16:07
by Chief Blur Buster
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February 2021 Update

Worldwide Forum Performance Upgraded
ABlur Busters Forums have been upgraded for faster performance (especially overseas -- Europe, Asia, Oceania), running over a premium paid CDN network -- this isn't your common $20 CloudFlare subscription anymore. Latency of this forums is halved from Japan and Australia, and 30% lower ping latency from Europe! Most of Blur Busters is now usually routed over an ~79 terabit/second worldwide Internet backbone (optional Cloudflare Argo Routing). Forum pages load at least twice to three times as fast for overseas visitors on broadband connections. Surge capacity is now 100x for any media/slashdotting/redditting surges, so the server won't even notice traffic surges. Wooo hooo!

Antispam Upgraded
You may get a captcha automatically if the forum is currently under attack or if you haven't logged in a while. This Forums have to do this because of DDoS / bots / hackers / spammers. Also, new forum members 1st and 2nd posts go into a moderation queue. Most forum members will graduate from New Member status after approximately 3 post (And also be able to post links / images).

Main Site Performance Upgraded Too
By now, you've noticed the main website blurbusters.com has been refreshed with noticeably faster performance and easy color-coded sections with a brand new menu bar! Plus a Dark Mode option for you all power users! (Click/tap the gear icon). More big changes are coming this year, and yes... Dark Mode will come to Forums too later this year. We also plan to merge the accounts system of the main site and forums into one unified login system, later in 2021.

Contact Me if Unable to PM / Login
If there are too many false positives, please send a PM. If you can't register need to email me, I can be contacted via Contact Me about Forum Upgrade Comments & Issues. Try to log on first before clicking the above link, but if you can't, the above link will work even if you can't register. If you need to include screenshots, put them on an image host and give me the link (Forum related only. Do not modify subject line)

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Re: UPGRADED: Forum Performance + Anti Spam. Any bugs? Registration issues?

Posted: 17 Feb 2021, 16:29
by BTRY B 529th FA BN
Nice, Chief! Keep up the great work!

Re: UPGRADED: Forum Performance + Anti Spam. Any bugs? Registration issues?

Posted: 11 Mar 2021, 00:40
by Chief Blur Buster
New Forum Feature: Emergency Autosave!!!

The upgrade has an emergency autosave feature upon window close. If you accidentally close the tab/window while writing a post -- you may be able to recover your post simply by going to History -> Recently Closed Tabs -> Click the tab you closed. Likewise, if you accidentally click on a link and surf to the next page, you can just click Back button to make your unfinished post reappear automatically.

Your unfinished post reappears, under these conditions:
-- You're still logged in and connected to the same network;
-- You don't revisit the forum URL in a different tab;
-- Instead, you reopen the accidentally-closed tab via your browser's "Recently Closed" feature, or Back button (any browser).

Nontheless, if you are prompted with a captcha, ALWAYS complete the captcha if it prompts an anti-spam captcha while you're posting. Attempting to skip the captcha may sometimes cause loss of your post.

Browser-specific quirks:
- FireFox requires you to reopen via "Recently Closed Tabs" or "Recently Closed Windows". For privacy reasons, FireFox automatically clears this upon exit by default, so make sure FireFox isn't completely exited.
- Chrome requires you to open via "History" -> Anything underneath the "Recently Closed" section. It will usually work to resurrect your incomplete post if reopen via "History" if you completely quit and restart the web browser, unless you configure it to automatically clear History upon quit.
- New Edge requires you reopen via "History" -> "Recently Closed" area rather than "All" area, but usually works even when you quit-restart browser.

Continued improvements will come
The autosave will improve in the future, but for now, this will be a lifesaver -- I've lost big in-progress posts because of my tab-closing rampages.

Re: UPGRADED: Forum Performance + Anti Spam. Any bugs? Registration issues?

Posted: 17 Mar 2021, 09:03
by Chief Blur Buster
New CloudFlare Hacker/Bot Firewall

Please Report Problems / Issues In This thread

Some users have witnessed frequent CloudFlare Captcha screens.

The CloudFlare CDN system was instituted because the forums were subject to "denial of service" hack attacks in the past, so this protects the website operations as well as speeds up the website overseas too (Europe, Australia, Asia, etc).

But sometimes it's a bit overeager to ask for a captcha or other issues. Such as asking the same user 4x in one day because the IP address changed often.

When you post a message, complete the captcha, and it will automatically complete the post.

If you see issues happening, please let me know, for potential fine tuning. If you can't login, use this link: Contact Me about Forum Upgrade Comments & Issues

Appreciated!

Re: UPGRADED: Forum Performance + Anti Spam. Any bugs? Registration issues?

Posted: 17 Mar 2021, 09:11
by BTRY B 529th FA BN
:thumbsup: