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
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.
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.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
