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There's source repository browsers (git/svn) way, way leaner than GitLab that have the same issues. Any repo browser offering a blame view for files can be brought down by those bots' traffic patterns. I have been hosting such repository browsers for 10+ years and it was never an issue until the arrival of these bots.

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Indeed. It's really exposing a major downside to running applications in browser context. It never really made sense. These applications really don't want public traffic like actual websites do. They should remain applications and stay off the web. But more likely is that the web will be destroyed to fit the requirements of the applications. Like what cloudflare, etc, and all this anti-bot social hysteria is doing.

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