Why do other proxies get stuck on Cloudflare's "Just a moment…" page?

Full answer

In detail

Cloudflare sits in front of 27.3% of all websites, according to W3Techs in October 2026, and many of those sites turn on its bot check: the 'Just a moment...' page with a spinner, sometimes a 'Verify you are human' box. Through most web proxies that page never ends, or ends in 'Unable to connect to the website'. The reason is not that the proxy is slow. Cloudflare ties its check to the site's own address and refuses to finish it for any other, and a web proxy, by design, shows you the site under the proxy's address. Clicking the box again fails for the same reason every time. On 12 October 2026 we tried six Cloudflare-protected sites through CroxyProxy, BlockAway, Proxyium, 4everProxy and TrickyBird: none opened any of the six. AnyProxy completes the check on its own side instead of asking your tab to; the first visitor to a site waits a few seconds, later visitors get the page at once, and all six loaded. We repeated one on 15 October: Stack Overflow opened through Virginia with no check left on screen. Three honest limits. ChatGPT's check is not always solved: on 15 October the first try stopped at 'Just a moment...' and a retry loaded. A site can block all data-centre traffic with 'Sorry, you have been blocked'; umingle.com did so again on 15 October, and no web proxy opens that. And a slow site can time out on the first visit; reloading once usually fixes it.

In practice

Six sites, six proxies, one afternoon

On 12 October 2026 we gave the same six Cloudflare-protected sites (4chan, Stack Overflow, nixos.wiki, Chatiw, Omegle Web, Glimmer Fics) to six web proxies in the same browser, waiting at least 25 seconds each. AnyProxy opened 6 of 6; CroxyProxy, BlockAway, Proxyium, 4everProxy and TrickyBird opened none. ProxySite and KProxy could not be tested at all that day.

Sources: W3Techs - Cloudflare usage statistics · Why web proxies get stuck on Cloudflare - blog · Best proxies for Cloudflare-protected sites

We checked

Cloudflare-protected sites through AnyProxy, 15 October 2026

Open Stack Overflow (Cloudflare-protected)

Worked · US exit · 2026-10-15

The Newest Questions list (24,134,661 questions) loaded with no 'Just a moment...' page left on screen.

Open chatgpt.com

Partly worked · SG exit · 2026-10-15

Open umingle.com (Cloudflare block rule)

Did not work · SG exit · 2026-10-15

Cloudflare 'Sorry, you have been blocked - You are unable to access umingle.com'. This is a block rule, not a check, and it matched on 12 Oct from all three free regions too.

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