If you noticed X, ChatGPT, or a bunch of other websites acting like they’d taken a coffee break on Tuesday morning, you weren’t imagining things.
Cloudflare, the company basically holding the internet together, had a major hiccup, and a huge chunk of the web went down with it.
So what happened?
Turns out it wasn’t some evil hacker plotting world domination. Nope. Cloudflare says a configuration file, designed to keep nasty traffic off the network, just grew too big and crashed the system. Yeah, that’s it. One tiny preventative measure decided to throw a tantrum and took millions of websites along for the ride.
Here’s the kicker. This is basically the internet saying, “Hey, maybe relying on a single company to keep everything running smoothly isn’t the smartest idea.” One glitch, and suddenly the digital world is chaos.
Why it feels worse than it actually was:
- Most of the internet was fine within a few hours, but for those who rely on these services for work or fun, it was a nightmare.
- The glitch highlights just how fragile our online infrastructure is. Cloudflare is massive, but even giants can trip over their own tech.
- The whole thing is a reminder. We all take these systems for granted until they don’t work.
Cloudflare has patched things and is back in business. But for a few hours Tuesday, the internet collectively raised its hands and muttered, “Okay, maybe we should chill on the over-reliance on one company.”
