Cloudflare Finally Launches Its Security-Focused Mobile VPN
In April this year, Cloudflare announced that they would launch Warp which is a VPN program fixing mobile Internet performance and security. According to Cloudflare, they decided to release the VPN by July. There were approximately two million people on the waitlist to try WARP. However, it took longer time than they expected to fully prepare the VPN program.
Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince says, “Yeah, what we thought was going to be easy back in April turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. We had been testing this primarily in San Francisco and Austin and London, which is where the teams that were working on this are based. But as soon as users started to get anywhere that didn’t have a fairly reliable internet connection, just all hell broke loose.”
On September 25, Matthew Prince stated that they are opening WARP and WARP Plus to the general public in a post. In the post, he explained why it took so long to release WARP. They planned to develop a next generation VPN tool which is able to secure consumer mobile connections without slowing them down or burning battery. Consumers can enjoy the fast connection without sacrificing security.
The VPN builds on Cloudflare’s existing mobile app 1.1.1.1. If you would like to use the VPN, you need to update the app to the latest version to enable Warp. Warp encrypts the whole journey from your device to a web server and back.
Is Warp free? There are two versions of Warp. If you sign up the basic WARP service, it is free while it does not include unlimited bandwidth caps. If you prefer unlimited bandwidth caps, you can sign up the WARP Plus by paying a monthly subscription fee. The fee for WARP Plus varies by region and is designed to approximate what a McDonald’s Big Mac would cost in the region. WARP Plus utilizes Argo which is Cloudflare’s virtual private backbone to achieve higher speeds and ensure your connection is encrypted all the time. Besides, they are giving 10 GB of WARP Plus to users who were on the waitlist before they announced the release.