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Warp – Mobile VPN

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#241

Post by ksec »

193 Comments and No one has asked yet.

How do they make money?

So, the price plan and extras from Business, Professional and Enterprise CDN is enough to cover all the cost of running the network + free tier CDN + Domain Registration Operation + DNS + Free tier VPN?

There is a reason why I am using Apple. Their interest is in me using iPhone or Apple devices with a very decent profits margin, and hopefully up sell me into any convenience services like iCloud and in the future Apple Cards. They are simple and easy to understand Business Model. Even iWork, Map, and all other Services are deducted from each Apple devices sold and now accounted into Services.

So how do Cloudflare make money with free VPN?

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#242

Post by ikeboy »

tracker1 wrote: post #209
ikeboy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the speed test app I get 65 direct and 58 using the NYC setting in PIA. Ping is 31 ms for PIA vs 28 direct. I look forward to testing with Warp once it's released, but I don't see how it could be much better than the status quo. PIA has lots of servers all over the place, cloudflare might have a bigger network but the delta should be negligible. I am a bit surprised that fast would get throttled though.

It's been pretty common and a big part of why Netflix created the service iirc. ISPs have been throttling netflix as a negotiating tactic when creating peering agreements for upstream traffic or deploying more content servers. The whole process has been really horrible imho. Some mobile providers do it to force lower quality streams, that in fairness are probably more appropriate for small/mobile devices. 1080p-4K ar…

Flagships from Apple, Samsung and Google are 1080p resolution or better. 4k is overkill but 1080p absolutely is not.

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#243

Post by ocdtrekkie »

bbx wrote: post #223
mysterypie wrote: post #203

Just as an aside, I thought that was an exceptionally well-written product announcement, or press release, or whatever you'd call it. It was long, but I didn't mind reading the whole thing. It answered all the basic questions about why I should use it, how they plan to make money, and with enough technical detail that I understood essentially how it works. It was very much the opposite of the marketing material you g…

I had the same reaction. As I was reading the article, I started asking myself "Hold on, what's in it for you? You're still a private company. How are you going to make money?". I then reached the "Ok, Sure, But You’re Still a Profit-Seeking Company" section. It's as if the article was reading my mind. Every free product comes with a catch. When this catch is not clearly explained by the company, I always feel it's b…

The choice to omit any sort of sign-in or account feature for the app is also a very stark difference. Even most apps with the stated goal of improving your privacy requires some sort of account.

While it's true that if Cloudflare was evil, they could fairly likely identify you from metadata, that's a lot more complex and a lot more error-prone than having you sign in.

I am curious though if this will extend to their premium Warp+ offering though, as presumably they need to identify a paying customer. Perhaps if they're entirely built off of IAP on whatever platforms their clients are on, they can avoid this problem entirely?

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#244

Post by programbreeding »

redwards510 wrote: post #228

Currently I use PIA VPN when browsing. When I go to Cloudflare sites, I often get captchas because, in the past, I imagine someone was using PIA to abuse a Cloudflare site. So what happens when people start using Warp to hide their IP so they can hack, scan, scrape, upload malware, etc? Is Cloudflare going to show captchas to Warp users and slow down their experience? What is the plan to mitigate abuse on a free VPN…

This is basically answered in a different thread [0]. They said they're passing on the original IP of the person using Warp, so it won't work in the same way as something like PIA in that way.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19544845

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#245

Post by jgrahamc »

ksec wrote: post #241

193 Comments and No one has asked yet. How do they make money? So, the price plan and extras from Business, Professional and Enterprise CDN is enough to cover all the cost of running the network + free tier CDN + Domain Registration Operation + DNS + Free tier VPN? There is a reason why I am using Apple. Their interest is in me using iPhone or Apple devices with a very decent profits margin, and hopefully up sell me…

In the article see the section "Ok, Sure, But You’re Still a Profit-Seeking Company"

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#246

Post by tcd »

Honestly, Jason is hopefully going to be thrilled Wireguard is going to be deployed to an absolutely massive scale, not even OpenVPN has been offered as a 'free VPN' like this.

I'm really hoping it works out, and Cloudflare can continue to contribute their expertise working with WG. At the end of the day, this benefits everyone since OpenVPN whilst it's reliable in my experience, is just too burdensome.

I also am intrigued by the price, and features that will differ between free/pro. I suspect many VPN services over the next few years will feel the effects of this (is that why they're all rushing to add 3 year plans?)

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#247

Post by ksoderstrom »

whitepoplar wrote: post #174

Will it be possible to whitelist network devices and/or SSIDs? Use case: I want to be able to say, "only use VPN when on WiFi networks (not cellular), and if so, only activate on public WiFi networks (not my home WiFi).

It’s currently possible to whitelist SSIDs, and disable for cellular, for the 1.1.1.1 DNS VPN profile on iOS, so I’m assuming it will work the same way for Warp.

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#248

Post by mindslight »

jgrahamc wrote: post #169
dexterdog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "cloudflare loading" screens that come up when visiting some low-traffic sites. It's probably more common for people using privacy blockers and browser containers to block tracking. I see it at least a few times per day and I get captchas on almost any site that uses them (regardless of being behind cloudflare).

That's "I'm Under Attack Mode" which is used by sites (mostly smaller ones) to protect against small DDoS attacks or scrapers.

... or individual browsers taking small steps to preserve their privacy.

I obviously don't know how many Cloudflared sites I visit that don't pop up the nag. And Cloudflare's nag is certainly nicer than Google's more pervasive help-us-build-a-T-800 or Akamai's "just get lost". But that mode seemingly activates on light browsing just because it's coming from a slightly-less-trackable VPS address (non-shared), and that is a problem.

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#249

Post by akerl_ »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #229
Shank wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself fairly competent, and I couldn’t understand the wireguard documentation enough to setup my own install without resorting to algo [0]. There’s real value in wrapping a system like WireGuard into a product, because it democratizes technology rather than making it available only to those knowledgable enough to understand how to set it up. I think Warp is great in that regard. [0]: https://github.com/tr…

> I couldn’t understand the wireguard documentation enough to setup my own install without resorting to algo Not sure what you mean. Algo has no relationship to WireGuard; it's basically a customized StrongSwan setup under the hood, which utilizes IKEv2 (not WireGuard) as the transport.

Algo added WireGuard support at least several months ago.

Re: Warp – Mobile VPN

#250

Post by jgrahamc »

tcd wrote: post #246

Honestly, Jason is hopefully going to be thrilled Wireguard is going to be deployed to an absolutely massive scale, not even OpenVPN has been offered as a 'free VPN' like this. I'm really hoping it works out, and Cloudflare can continue to contribute their expertise working with WG. At the end of the day, this benefits everyone since OpenVPN whilst it's reliable in my experience, is just too burdensome. I also am int…

We'll keep our open source Rust WireGuard code up to date with our internal version. We hope to work with the WireGuard project later once the dust has settled.

Warp+ will use Argo (our "Waze" of the Internet) to improve routing. It significantly improves reliability and performance. Pricing for Warp+ will vary by region/country to ensure it's appropriately affordable everywhere.

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