👞 Does The Shoemaker Go Barefoot?

Welcome! 👋
Trying ZenRows API, genuinely curious about this technology, I wanted to explore the product hands-on — and what better way than to try scraping its own API registration page?

🤖 What This Is

Using ZenRows API with AI Web Unblocker, by enabling Premium Proxies and JS rendering, I attempted to scrape its registration page — the one sitting behind a Cloudflare proxy. The goal wasn’t just to test for success or failure, but to better understand the edge cases and real-world behavior when used under tough conditions.

Spoiler alert:

Even the best tools can struggle when turned inward. 😅
In this case, ZenRows own API appears to be unable to get past their own anti-bot defenses — and honestly, that makes perfect sense!

Installation and Running

• clone the repo
• cd to the cloned directory
• create a .env file with your API Key

echo ZENROWS_API_KEY=[YOUR API KEY] > .env

• install dependencies and run the basic scraping script

npm install
npm run main --url=[URL TO SCRAPE]

Example

npm run main --url=https://app.zenrows.com/register

📌 Why I Did This

• To demonstrate that I care about products I am exploring.
• To show how I think about debugging and understanding systems from the outside in.
• To explore the practical boundaries of even the best scraping tools.
• And, maybe, to share a chuckle about the classic saying:
  “The shoemaker's children go barefoot.”

🛠️ What's In Here (see Installation and Running above)

• A short script using ZenRows API to request the registration page.
• Parameters configured according to ZenRows documentation.
• Observations and logs that show the outcome.

💬 Final Thought

This isn’t meant as a “gotcha” — just a small, thoughtful test that reflects how much I enjoy digging into systems and thinking about product realities. If you're a ZenRows employee reading this, thanks for stopping by! I’d love to chat more about ways to improve, debug, and build around real-world product behavior like this.

Cheers,
Tal Yaniv