Cloudflare promotes its recently-released Warp service for smartphones as a VPN for non-technical people, but it doesn't provide the kind of privacy you'd expect from a full VPN and it doesn't allow you to choose your endpoint region, so you can't use it to get around site bans in restrictive countries or watch overseas streaming services.

Instead, the 1.1.1.1 with Warp app for Android and iOS is designed to improve your mobile broadband connection speeds and provide a few security benefits, effectively making your traffic invisible to snoopers on your local network but not providing an anonymised connection to the sites you're accessing at the other end.


Although your ISP won't be able to monitor your traffic, Cloudflare makes it clear that "WARP is not designed to allow you to access geo-restricted content when you’re traveling. It will not hide your IP address from the websites you visit." If you're after region-shifting or more confidential internet connectivity, this simply isn't the service for you.

Cloudflare, whose global networking infrastructure provides DDoS defence and performance enhancement to websites around the world, has recently begun providing services directly to end users, rather than just to sites that want to improve performance for those users.

Read next The NHS Test and Trace app has two flaws: QR codes and people The NHS Test and Trace app has two flaws: QR codes and people

The Warp VPN is available as a free or paid-for extra features of Cloudflare's existing 1.1.1.1 app, which provides fast DNS resolution that also helps to keep your browsing activity private from your broadband provider and protect you from potential man-in-the-middle attacks by using Cloudflare's DNS resolution servers, rather than your ISP's.

Like NordVPN's experimental NordLynx protocol, currently available to Linux users, which our tests have found to produce truly dramatic speed boosts of hundreds of MB/s under some conditions, Cloudflare Warp is based on a secured implementation of the WireGuard protocol.


The basic 1.1.1.1 DNS resolution app and Warp VPN service are free. You can also subscribe to Warp+ Unlimited, which promises – but doesn't necessarily produce – even faster connection speeds and is priced at £3.99 per month in the UK. You can also earn Warp+ in 1GB blocks by referring your friends.

Like any VPN, Warp's performance is highly dependent on the speed of your internet connection. You'll need a reasonably powerful, modern device to use 1.1.1.1 – or any VPN service – effectively, because apps of this kind are massive resource and battery hogs on older Android phones in particular.

You can get a performance boost on older hardware: we ran speed tests on our elderly Google Nexus 4 running Android 5.1.1 with poor reception during a thunderstorm. Without 1.1.1.1 and Warp enabled, a speed test gave us average throughput of 2.8Mbit/s. That went up to 9.6Mbit/s when we turned on the Warp. However, the phone also heated up like mad and caned its battery, so Cloudflare isn't really something we'd recommend for aging smartphones.

Read next These Chrome extensions protect you against creepy web tracking These Chrome extensions protect you against creepy web tracking

On a more up-to-date Nokia 7 Plus running Android 9, battery consumption and device heating were negligible. We used web and app-based speed test tools to obtain some baseline comparisons. Our standard 4G connection from a nearby tower gave us an average download speed of 23.04Mbit/s and an upload speed of 3.66Mbit/s. When we enabled Warp, the slight improvement we saw was within the margin of error: 23.24Mbit/s down and 4.09Mbit/s up. By comparison, the download speeds we got from local NordVPN and ExpressVPN endpoints both averaged around 16Mbit/s down with upload speeds of around 5Mbit/s at the time of testing.


During a second series of tests, with reference 4G speeds of 35.8Mbits down and 10.6Mbit/s up, Warp averaged 28.4 down and 5.38Mbit/s up. With Warp+ Unlimited, Cloudflare's faster, paid-for service, download speeds weren't significantly improved, coming in at between 18Mbit/s and 30Mbit/s, but we got upload speeds of up to 10Mbit/s. Connected to ADSL via Wi-Fi, Warp+ Unlimited chugged along at around our usual 5Mbit/s, with occasional drops in speed.

Dedicated speed tests obviously aren't the be-all and end-all of online performance. We perceived a slight speed improvement in our general use of social media or web browsing while connected to Warp, which more realistically represents what people actually do with their phones.

When we ran a series of traceroute commands from an Android terminal emulator, Cloudflare's advantage here became apparent. The route from our 4G provider to our European reference site usually takes around 14 hops – points at which the data packet moved from one router to another – and about 2.1 seconds to get there.

With Warp or Warp+ connected, the same site was typically reached in eight hops and around 0.4 of a second. Connecting a US site took 8 hops and one second via Warp, compared to 14 hops and slightly more than a second to get there without it – the improvements are marginal, certainly, but could add up to a smoother and more responsive browsing experience

Read next The best VPN services tested for speed, reliability and privacy The best VPN services tested for speed, reliability and privacy

The advantage appears to primarily come from Cloudflare's dedicated backend infrastructure. Rather than sending your traffic across sometimes meandering routes via the public internet, Cloudflare sends data directly through its own servers and dedicated connections where possible.

1.1.1.1's terms and conditions also state that "Warp and Warp+ will not route traffic data from your device through the Cloudflare network for certain Internet properties, such as over-the-top content provider websites, as determined by Cloudflare in its sole discretion." That is likely to include streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.

To confirm this, we watched Netflix while connected to Warp, and we were only presented with our local film selection. An email from Netflix confirmed that it had detected a new connection from our local geographic region, even though a manual IP address check indicated that we were using a US endpoint.

Cloudflare's official position on privacy is that it "stores the absolute minimum amount of data we believe is required to provide the 1.1.1.1 service", including "limited DNS query and traffic data", your app installation ID, average speed and amount of data transferred, which it pledges to never sell, rent or disclose "except as necessary to provide our services."

The company says that it stores no personally identifying data. But other VPN companies have previously made no-logging claims only to renege on that and hand user data over to government agencies, so we tend to prefer those who've either had this demonstrated through legal or police action, or with an independent audit, neither of which applies to Warp. And although Cloudflare's reputation is generally very robust when it comes to privacy, it's worth once again noting that this is not a full, privacy-oriented VPN service in the first place.

Read next Free VPNs are a privacy nightmare. You shouldn’t download them Free VPNs are a privacy nightmare. You shouldn’t download them

Cloudflare insists that WARP is built for the 'average consumer', but that line is very much predicated on the assumption that other VPN services are hard to use. In reality, when it comes to mobile VPNs your only challenge is picking a decent provider – we recommend ProtonVPN and Windscribe for free, and NordVPN, Private Internet Access or ExpressVPN if you've got money to spend.

Actually using a mobile VPN is generally a one-tap affair – two if you want to select your endpoint location from an extended list. 1.1.1.1 with Warp is best regarded as a local security tool that could potentially provide a connection speed boost. It's free and unlimited, but it won't conceal your IP address from the sites you connect to.

Read our guide to the best VPN services to see how 1.1.1.1 with Warp compares. When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn a small affiliate commission. This does not impact the products we recommend.

More great stories from WIRED

💰 Meet the economist with a brilliant plan to fix capitalism

🎮 Long Read: Inside Google Stadia

🎧 Expand your mind with the WIRED guide to the best podcasts


🤕 No-deal Brexit would trigger a huge data problem

📧 Get the best tech deals and gadget news in your inbox