Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN (Warp) Review

Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN (sometimes called Warp by Cloudflare) is a “freemium” VPN app available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. It is from one of the trusted hosts in the community, Cloudflare. The App is widespread, and they have the potential to compete strongly in the space. That said, we noticed some things are still missing. It does have some of the features a standard VPN would, but it has limitations in other ways. In this review, we’ll check the ins and outs of the service. That way, you know what to expect if you decide to use it.

Warp by Cloudflare Pricing

Even though it is a free service, the Android app shows a version they call WARP+. As you can see in the image, you can get the Unlimited plan for $4.99 a month. That way, you can get unlimited data through their servers. Unfortunately, we could not find out how much data the free plan offers, but recruiting a friend gives you 1 GB of data. Ideally, we would like to see different payment options available, other than Google Pay and Apple Pay. Since the only difference seems to be the amount of data you can use, we’ll be testing the standard version.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare was launched in 2010 as a way to keep “web-facing” properties safe and fast. Since that time, the company has made it their goal to deliver faster and safer internet for everyone. They tout themselves as the world’s fastest public DNS resolver, and any web user could improve the speed of any website simply by changing their settings. That way, they can make the internet safer and faster. They want to make it easy for people that don’t know what a VPN is to be able to protect themselves online.

How does Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 with Warp Work?

Cloudflare uses their own version of the popular WireGuard protocol that they call BoringTun. What it does is encrypt the traffic from your current device and send it through their servers. WireGuard has become popular in the VPN community as of late, and even the more traditional personal VPN services have started to use the protocol. The advantages of the protocol have to do with performance. When you use their WARP+ service, they use Argo Smart Routing to develop the shortest path through their global network of data centers to give you the best possible speeds. Unfortunately, they do not add a desktop icon during the install. Instead, you can access it from the startup programs, as you see below. As soon as you click on the little orange or gray cloud, you can move the toggle slider to the right to turn it on.

As we said in the last paragraph, they choose the closest server to your location. That means at this point, there is no way to change the server location you connect to. If you are familiar with other popular VPNs, you know that changing servers is a significant benefit. We would like to see Cloudflare offer that ability. That said, you can block malware and/or adult content by tweaking a few settings. The website says they will add new features like split tunneling in the future.

Does Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN Leak?

This one is an easy question to answer. The answer is no, Cloudflare VPN does not leak. As you can see in this image, Cloudflare did a great job of not leaking our IP address. As you can guess, it shows that all requests came from the Cloudflare network. That is the type of result that we would expect from a leading privacy company like Cloudflare.

Is Cloudflare VPN Fast?

Earlier, we mentioned that Cloudflare uses the WireGuard VPN protocol. That really helps when it comes to speed. Since we could only test one server, here are our results. This test shows our speed without before connecting to the VPN. As you can see, our baseline speed is 439 Mbps.

When we connected to Cloudflare VPN, you can see we got a result of 328 Mbps.

Since there is only a 25% speed loss in those two results, we are pleased to share that yes, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN is fast. That is surprising, given that Cloudflare is offering free VPN access.

Does Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN Unblock Streaming Services? – Netflix and BBC iPlayer

Not surprisingly, Cloudflare does not completely pass this test. That is because it is not designed to do so. As you might remember from earlier in our review, Cloudflare VPN does not let you choose a server location. Since we’re in the United States, the service automatically connected to a VPN server in the US. In doing so, we had success getting the VPN to work with Netlfix. While our screenshot doesn’t show the picture, Netflix works well when connected to Cloudflare.

On the other hand, we had a problem connecting to BBC iPlayer. Once again, this is due to Cloudflare not allowing us to select a VPN server in the United Kingdom. Once they extend support to switch server locations we will gladly test BBC iPlayer again. In the meantime you will need to consider other VPN services for streaming if you want to unblock content in countries outside of your home region.

Conclusion

To wrap this review up, we have mostly good things to say about Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN. It is a fast and secure service. The company is focused on privacy and does a good job of keeping everything safe. Although we normally list good points and bad points, this one has very few bad points. We love the fact that the premium version is reasonably priced, the service is fast, and it uses the WireGuard protocol. A couple tips to improve the service would be adding the ability to connect to servers in other regions/countries and adding a kill switch. Those two factors are the only items holding us back from recommending Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 VPN to everyone. If you want to protect your privacy and do not care about getting around geo-restrictions in other regions, then Warp VPN is a solid choice.