Cloudflare has launched its new VPN WARP

After announcing its new VPN service earlier this year, Cloudflare's WARP and WARP Plus are now generally available and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple's App Store.

In a recent blog post, the company explained why WARP's launch was delayed, saying that: “building a next generation service to secure consumer mobile connections without slowing them down or burning battery was... harder than we originally thought”.

Cloudflare was also surprised by the reception its new VPN service received and before its launch, two million people had signed up to be on the wait list to try WARP.

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Interested users can download and start using WARP on their iOS or Android devices for free starting today. Cloudflare is also making amends to those who signed up but weren't able to try out the service for themselves by giving 10GB of the paid version of WARP, WARP Plus to those how have been patiently waiting for its release.

WARP Plus

In addition to being a product, WARP is also a testbed for all of the internet-improving technology Cloudflare has spent years developing. The company's Argo routing technology allows users to utilize faster, less-congested routes to send their traffic through the internet. Cloudflare customers have been using the technology for the past few years and Argo has improved the speed of their websites by an average of over 30 percent.

This technology is now available to everyone though through Warp Plus. Since routing users' internet traffic through Cloudflare's network costs the company more, the paid version of WARP costs users $4.99 or less as the fee depends on which region you're in and the company has tried to keep the cost of its monthly subscription approximate to what a Big Mac would cost in the same region.

Basic WARP is free to use and the company's first priority is not to make money from the service but to help secure every single smartphone user secure their device while outside of their homes. To help WARP gain new users, Cloudflare has an incentive where those who share the app with their friends can earn 1GB of free WARP Plus and this offer also extends to those who are referred as well.

The company is also trying to set itself apart from other not so reputable free security tools by including the strong privacy protections from 1.1.1.1 with WARP. This means that the Cloudflare won't write user-identifiable log data to disk and it won't sell your browsing data or use it for targeted advertisements. WARP will not require users to provide any personal information and Cloudflare has said that it will work with outside auditors to ensure its living up to its claims.

While WARP is a VPN, the service is not designed to bypass region blocks or hide your IP address. Instead, the service is built for the average consumer to ensure their data is secured while it's in transit.

• Also check out our complete list of the best VPN services of 2019