
Beta for WARP for macOS and Windows - illustrioussuit
https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-the-beta-for-warp-for-macos-and-windows/
======
steveklabnik
One of the fun things about working at a place is you get to try stuff out
early; as a Windows user, I was one of the first folks outside of the team to
try out Warp for Windows.

I would say "I'm happy to answer questions" but I'm not sure what I could
answer; for a while now, I frankly forget that I have it even installed. It
pretty much Just Works.

~~~
Cyberdog
Here's a question. I've read the article twice and I can't figure out what the
product is. What is it? Is it a VPN service?

~~~
steveklabnik
So, 1.1.1.1 is Cloudflare's public DNS resolver. It's the fastest resolver on
Earth: [https://www.dnsperf.com/#!dns-
resolvers](https://www.dnsperf.com/#!dns-resolvers) It's fast because
Cloudflare has 200 data centers all over the globe, and you connect to the
nearest one.

Warp is a set of apps that will set your phone (and with this, today, your
computer) to use 1.1.1.1 for resolving your DNS. But additionally, it uses the
Wireguard protocol to connect, which is a VPN protocol. This hides the
contents of your connection from your ISP or network provider. It _does_ mean
you're connecting to Cloudflare, and so we've made a bunch of privacy
commitments, and gotten external auditing to back those up:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22747770](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22747770)

The above is all free. You can pay a small subscription fee to get access to
Warp+, which uses Cloudflare's "Argo" product to route your requests faster.

Does that make more sense?

~~~
JackC
From the original blog post announcing Warp, I would have thought "yes, Warp
is a VPN service" was the right answer:

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-
vpn/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/)

My understanding of that blog post is:

* 1.1.1.1 is Cloudflare's DNS resolver.

* Warp is a free VPN service, using the Wireguard protocol, with the exit at your nearest Cloudflare data center.

* Warp+ is a $5/mo. paid tier of the VPN service, with the exit at the Cloudflare data center nearest your destination, which ought to be faster.

* All of these are enabled on mobile via the app called "1.1.1.1".

I don't think "Warp is a set of apps that will set your phone to use 1.1.1.1
for resolving your DNS" is right -- but I could be misunderstanding either the
product or Steve's summary ...

~~~
steveklabnik
Yes, I got the name of the app wrong; it's called "1.1.1.1". I have been using
it only since the Warp stuff was added, so in my brain it's called "warp" even
though that's not actually correct, sorry.

Warp _is_ a vpn service, but I hesitate to just say "yes" in this case because
of the caveats around end-users seeing your IP. Many folks use vpns to attempt
to hide information from the site that they use, but this doesn't inherently
do that, it hides the information from your internet provider. When this was
announced on HN, there was a lot of arguing about that, so I tried to sidestep
it by just saying plainly what it does.

------
splitrocket
Can I run my own WARP server? If not, I'm not that interested.

If I'm trading one centralized service for another, there is no net gain.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I dunno; I don't know if I really like or trust cloudflare, but I'm sure I
trust them more than my ISP.

~~~
asdkhadsj
Yup, that's exactly where I sit. A well implemented VPN is useful because I
heavily distrust my ISP. I _could_ use some other big VPN provider, I guess,
but I've always admired the tech stack of Cloudflare.. so I'm interested.

And fwiw, since I'm sure someone will think it - I don't want to manage my own
VPN on some remote server. Not only would I put myself at risk because I don't
have the experience to manage a secure server of such importance, but all I
did was move my risk from my ISP to some other endpoint (VPS hosting/etc).

It feels like a game of risks no matter what you do.

