Cloudflare's original focus was to make the internet safer and faster. But since then, it has experimented with various products, expanding its reach to include even more goodies.
It was in 2018 that Clouflare introduced 1.1.1.1, its own DNS resolver. Months later, the company launched a dedicated app, so users can access this DNS resolver straight from their mobile devices.
Moving forward, the company introduced 'Warp', which is described as "the VPN for people who don’t know what VPN stands for."
Initially, Warp's introduction doesn't coincide with the service's launch. Cloudflare wanted to make the announcement on April 1st because it’s exactly a year since the announcement of 1.1.1.1 (4/1), but the team somehow missed the date.
This is why Cloudflare that leverages 1.1.1.1's presence to offer Warp, includes it as an optional and free upgrade.
A VPN is a virtual private network: something that acts as an intermediary between users and the wider internet, allowing them to customize how they connect in many helpful ways, such as changing their geographic locations or avoiding IP-based tracking.
The problem for most VPNs in the market is that, they aren't very good.
Especially free VPN services, they can be very slow and annoying. They can also bombard user with ads, let alone properly securing users' connections. And in many cases, VPN apps are battery hogs that devour batteries like there's no tomorrow..
And as for paid ones, they can be marginally better than their free counterparts, but come with prices that are expensive to some
Trusting a company with all internet traffic isn’t generally a good idea. So here, Cloudflare which has carved its name well in the internet business, is trying to be one of the crowd.
Warp, according to a blog post by CEO Matthew Prince, will provide many of the benefits of a VPN, such as speeding up internet connection while adding privacy and security. but with none of the drawbacks.
But to enter the already cruel market, Cloudflare has prepared some strategies.
"We’ve been tinkering with this idea for 3 or 4 years," said Prince.
Originally there was the idea of making a browser, "but that’s insane," Prince said; as Apple and Google would easily crush it. Since practically everything is going to be app-based and mobile, Prince saw the opportunity for Cloudflare to be in the layer between those things and the broader internet.
"So, a VPN, and it made all the sense in the world for us," he said.
"To be honest, for the vast majority of existing VPN users, this is probably not the right solution for them," admitted Prince.
"If you want to change your country to access Netflix while you’re traveling, there are lots of people that offer that service, but that’s not the market we’re getting into. We wanted something with mass appeal instead of trying to cannibalize what’s out there."
To ensure that this Warp doesn't have the drawbacks usually found on competitors, the company didn't build this VPN from the ground up.
Instead, the team at the company rewrote the open source VPN layer created by Wireguard, and added in a UDP-based protocol created by Neumob, a company Cloudflare acquired in 2017.
On top of that, the Warp VPN works on the larger network of Cloudflare servers all around the world.
Cloudflare claims that using Warp, users should see an improved connection speed, and at the same time, also more secured from DNS lookup data
One of the things that Warp lacks that some of existing VPNs have, is the ability to block ads at the IP level.
But according to Prince, he and this team at the company were uncomfortable with the idea of picking and choosing content, not least because many of their customers are ad-supported sites.
"There’s just something creepy about when the internet’s underlying pipes start making editorial decisions,” Prince said. “When we start messing with the contents of a page, even if people want us to, it sets a dangerous precedent."