April 1 is not the best day to announce a new product, because many may think that this is just another joke, but the Cloudflare team thinks otherwise. After all, this is a rather significant date for them, since the address of their main mass product, a fast and anonymous DNS server, is 1.1.1.1 (4/1), which was also launched on April 1 last year. In this regard, the company could not help but compare itself with Google due to the fact that the well-known email service Gmail was launched on April 1, 2004.
So, once again denoting that this is no joke, Cloudflare announced the launch of its own DNS server based on the 1.1.1.1 mobile application, which was previously used to automatically configure the DNS service provided by the company on mobile devices.
Before getting into the details, in a blog post, the companies couldn't help but talk about the success of 1.1.1.1, which saw a 700% monthly install growth and is likely to become the second largest public DNS service in the world, second only to Google. However, Cloudflare expects to move it in the future, taking first place.
The company also recalls that it was one of the first to popularize standards such as DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS in collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation. These standards govern the encryption method for communicating between your device and a remote DNS server so that no third party (including your Internet service provider) can use Man in the Middle (MITM) attacks. , could not track your movements on the Internet using DNS traffic. It is worth noting that in some cases it is the lack of DNS encryption that makes it inefficient to use VPN services for anonymization, if the latter do not filter DNS traffic through themselves in a separate order.
On November 11, 2018 (and again four units), Cloudflare launched its application for mobile devices, which allowed everyone to use secure DNS with the support of the mentioned standards, literally with the click of a button. And, according to the company, despite the fact that they expected little interest in the application, it ended up being used by millions of people on Andoid and iOS platforms around the world.
After that, Cloudflare thought about what else could be done to secure the Internet for mobile devices. As noted in the blog post below, the mobile Internet could be much better than what it is now. Yes, 5G solves many problems, but the TCP / IP protocol itself, from the point of view of Cloudflare, is simply not designed for wireless communication, as it does not have the necessary resistance to interference and data packet loss caused by them.
So, in the course of reflections on the state of the mobile Internet, a βsecretβ plan was born in the company. Its implementation began with the acquisition of Neumob, a small startup developing applications for mobile VPN clients. It was Neumob's developments that eventually made it possible to create Warp, a VPN service from Cloudflare (do not confuse it with warpvpn.com of the same name).
What is special about the new service?
First, Cloudflare promises that the application will provide the fastest possible connection speed, which will be helped by hundreds of servers around the world with low access latency, as well as built-in traffic compression technology, where it is safe and possible. The company claims that the worse the connection, the greater the benefit of using Warp for access speed. The description of the technology is painfully reminiscent of Opera Turbo, although the latter is more of a proxy server and has never been positioned as a tool for security and anonymity on the network.
Secondly, the new VPN service uses the WireGuard protocol, which was developed by Canadian information security specialist Jason A. Donenfeld. A feature of the protocol is high performance and modern encryption, and a well-organized and compact code makes it easy to implement and audit it for a high level of security and the absence of any bookmarks. WireGuard has already been praised by Linux creator Linus Torvalds and the US Senate.
Thirdly, Cloudflare has made every effort to reduce the impact of the application on the battery of mobile devices, this is achieved both due to the minimum processor load due to the use of WireGuard, and by optimizing the number of calls to the radio module.
How to get access?
Just install the latest 1.1.1.1 app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, run it and you'll see a nice button at the top asking you to participate in Warp testing. After pressing it, you will take a place in the general queue of those who want to try out a new service. As soon as the turn reaches you, you will receive a notification, after which you can activate Warp, and until then you can continue to use 1.1.1.1 as a secure and fast DNS service.
Cloudflare says that the service will be completely free and distributed according to the freemium model, that is, the company plans to make money on additional functionality for premium accounts, as well as on the provision of services for corporate clients. Premium accounts will have access to single servers with more bandwidth, as well as Argo routing technology that allows you to route your traffic through a number of servers, bypassing high-load areas of the network, which, according to Cloudflare, can reduce the delay for accessing Internet resources by up to 30% .
It is still difficult to assess the reality of all the promises of Cloudflare in their quest to make the VPN service of their dreams, but the overall idea and intentions of the company look very interesting, and therefore we are looking forward to when Warp will be available to everyone to test its speed and server capacity companies to withstand the future load, given that there are already about 300 people who want to test Warp on Google Play alone.
Source: 3dnews.ru