Crawlers

Romanian commentator Radu Hossu says Yandex crawler traffic has fallen to near zero, citing Cloudflare Radar data, and claims this is because Ukraine has disabled the servers hosting them — quote, 'by firepower'. He says he is now testing whether bot activity is really gone by posting statements that should generate reactions if automated accounts are still operating. The claim has drawn wide engagement online.

A Cloudflare Radar dashboard for AS13238, the network associated with Russian search engine Yandex, shows heavy bot traffic over the past seven days, and the figures are being circulated and debated among web infrastructure professionals. Commenters are discussing the scale of automated crawling attributed to Yandex and what it means for sites dealing with unwanted crawler load.

A comment circulating online asks whether anyone can quantify the collective time people now lose to 'verification' screens, arguing the captchas multiplied as AI bots overrun the internet. The observation is striking a chord: as automated crawlers and scrapers flood websites, more sites demand proof of humanity, adding seconds of friction to everyday browsing for millions of users.

Yandex's crawler traffic has collapsed by roughly 99% following an attack on one of its data centers, according to traffic monitoring data for the Russian search company's network. The drop means Yandex's bots have largely stopped crawling the web, prompting discussion about the outage's cause, scale, and impact on sites that rely on or block its indexing activity.

Chinese researchers are testing a large tracked robot that collects iron from sand in the Taklamakan Desert. The machine is being compared to the sand-crawling harvesters from the film Dune, and reports suggest it could support mining operations in one of the world's harshest desert environments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed strikes on Russian data centres have knocked out bots, prompting viral traffic graphs cited as proof. But analysts, including a BBC News fact-check, say the answer is no: the spikes in those graphs reflect search engine spiders and similar automated crawlers, not collapsing social media bot activity.

Attention has turned again to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, the Atlus dungeon crawler first released on the Nintendo DS, with commentary framing its story around the true punishment of mass sin. The game follows soldiers sent into the Schwarzwelt, an anomaly consuming Antarctica, where humanity's collective sins are judged. Readers are discussing its dark themes and lasting legacy.

A new creature feature, "Crawlers", produced by the makers of the John Wick films, has been released for home viewing in Germany. German film outlets are also promoting deals on the John Wick movies themselves, with one retailer discounting what it calls one of the best action films of recent years. Interest in the franchise remains high among German-speaking audiences.

NBC's top executive has spoken publicly about the network's decision to pick up 'Line Of Fire', along with updates on projects including 'Newlyweds' and an adaptation of 'Dungeon Crawler Carl'. The remarks give a first indication of how the network is shaping its upcoming slate, and industry watchers are parsing the comments for signs of NBC's programming priorities heading into the next season.

Liza Katz of NBC spoke with Deadline about recent developments at the network, including a shift involving the 'Newlyweds' project and plans for an adaptation of 'Dungeon Crawler Carl', the popular book series. The interview covers her role in NBC's programming strategy and other upcoming projects, drawing attention from television industry watchers.

Yandex's crawler traffic has reportedly collapsed by roughly 99% following an attack on one of the company's data centers, according to bot traffic data published on Cloudflare Radar. The figures are circulating on Hacker News, where users are weighing what the drop means for the Russian search giant's web indexing and for sites that rely on its crawler.

The gothic roguelike Darkest Dungeon is on sale at the Humble Store for $3.74, an 85% discount off its usual PC price. The deal is being shared among PC gamers tracking store discounts, with the title available redeemable on Steam. It is one of the steeper percentage cuts currently running for the acclaimed dungeon-crawler.

A discussion among web publishers and Chrome on Linux users is asking whether Meta's Muse crawler or agent can be blocked at the server level without resorting to fingerprinting scripts that would also block legitimate Chrome on Linux visitors. Some users report being caught by bot-detection systems more often, and site owners are weighing how to distinguish AI agents from real people.

An AI Crawler Index has been launched, cataloguing the web crawlers used by artificial intelligence companies. It aims to help site owners identify which AI agents access their content, a growing concern as publishers debate whether to block or license their material to AI firms. Discussion has focused on how sites can manage automated AI traffic.