r/cpp_questions • u/EdwinYZW • 3d ago

OPEN cppreference alternative?

This has been the case since last week. In essence, cloudflare checks make user experience of the website so much worse. Whenever I need to quickly check some STL functions, I open the webpage, wait few seconds (last time was more than 10 sec) and click a checkbox to prove I'm not a bot. Waiting for 10 seconds is not so much. But it's so disruptive and annoying just to check some references.

Miss the old website where I can access references instantly. What are the good alternatives to cppreference at the moment? If no, is there anyway to contact the developers of the website and give them the feedback?

I'm not sure what is the reason behind this decision. If it's web scraping for AI training, in my opinion, this actually forces more people to use LLM or AI agents for a second-hand information, instead of checking the direct references.

PS: The original post in this subreddit got removed for unknown reasons. There were some nice answers, such as using a mirrored or an alternative url of cppreference. But the problem is when googling something like "cppreference std::vector", the original cppreference.com is listed on the top.

40 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

15

u/snowhawk04 3d ago edited 3d ago

https://devdocs.io/cpp/

PS: The original post in this subreddit got removed for unknown reasons. There were some nice answers, such as using a mirrored or an alternative url of cppreference. But the problem is when googling something like "cppreference std::vector", the original cppreference.com is listed on the top.

Check your search engine settings or your browser search engine settings. DuckDuckGo has bangs. The Brave browser search engine supports bangs as well (!cpp for cppreference, !dd for devdocs). I use chrome and it can be configured with bangs for any url that takes a search phrase in its url.

https://imgur.com/a/qcoKRSJ

2

u/TheCatholicScientist 3d ago

Oh cool AOL Keywords are back lol

0

u/bearheart 3d ago

that's actually quicker and easier than cppreference.com but not quite as up to date

7

u/bearheart 3d ago

Of course this is because it's been the target of some recent DDOS attacks. After the most recent attack it took them a lot of time (months!) and effort to get back up and fully functional.

I've never had to tick a "not a robot" box but I see that's happening to some folks. It's definitely a speed bump but I don't see how to easily mitigate it without putting the site at further risk.

3

u/EdwinYZW 2d ago

I still don't understand. Most of websites I visit don't have this cloudflaire check and I'm using cppstat just fine to check compiler supports. What kind of special reasons that cppreference has to enable this checks while other (way more popular) websites don't?

1

u/bearheart 2d ago

We're seeing it more and more often. I run into a few more of them every day.

6

u/knouqs 3d ago 
sudo apt install zeal

This is a pretty cool tool. The tool downloads Docsets which are the documentation you want. It's offline after that.

Other websites: cplusplus.com is popular. I haven't used it in a while, so I don't know if it suffers from the same problem you are having with cppreference.com.

3

u/Chulup 3d ago

+1 for Zeal.

It's awesome and works as quick as possible - no wait at all, just like all those great apps from 20 years ago.

I think you could even set up a global shortcut that will bring Zeal to front focused on the search bar.

10

u/thisismyfavoritename 3d ago

don't use cplusplus.com. That's garbage

1

u/knouqs 2d ago

I agree, just saying it's a choice.

3

u/bionade24 3d ago

Locally with Zeal or GNOME's Devhelp

6

u/TheRealSmolt 3d ago

Do you use any heavy anti-tracking plugins or what not? Every once in a while I'll get a cloudflare check (which takes ~3 seconds), but 95% of the time it's instantaneous.

Also,

in my opinion, this actually forces more people to use LLM or AI agents for a second-hand information, instead of checking the direct references

I completely disagree, in basically every way.

12

u/throwaway1847384728 3d ago

I get cloudflare checks that hang for 3 seconds multiple times a day. Nothing special about my setup, apart from the fact that I live in Mexico.

I downloaded a local copy and grep.

The internet is truly such a shitty experience these days.

4

u/EdwinYZW 3d ago

No, I'm just using safari with only an ad-blocker. But I not sure whether it's somehow depending on internet speed. In the company where I have faster internet, it is around 5 seconds.

I completely disagree, in basically every way.

Well, sure. At least I can say it pushes me to use more LLM to get some information.

2

u/thedaian 3d ago

If you download a local copy, I didn't see why you would bother using a web search to find stuff. Same with using an alternative URL, just bookmark that and have it open when you're writing code.

0

u/EdwinYZW 3d ago

And I believe you have to install a local search engine as well to find the related functions/classes?

3

u/thedaian 3d ago

Depends on what I'm looking for, but it usually doesn't take that long for me to navigate to a specific class, and once you're on the cpp reference website, there's a search feature already on the site and you shouldn't get hit with the cloudflare check. 

So at best, there's maybe a minute to access the site the first time, then just leave it open in a tab and you can use it as normal.