I use a VPN 99% of the time and I definitely see more cloudflare on my systems (as opposed to when I'm bored and surfing in the library) and see the "checking" screen. It does seem to be a lot better than last year though when it seemed I was getting a captcha every time I turned around
I have the same issue and often just reconnecting using a different node/city resolves it Annoying as hell, but sometimes the problem is the nodes in the US show as being in EU for some reason.
