💻/🖥️/📱 Connect to Cloudflare WARP

TYPE AUDIENCE PRIORITY COMPLEXITY EFFORT COST UPDATED
Conduct 🧑 ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ 🧑🧑 🆓 2021-06-14

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Rationale

Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 with WARP is a DNS Resolver and VPN in-one. By using Cloudflare as your DNS Resolver, you hide which web sites you are visiting from your Internet Service Provider (i.e. your telco or your broadband company). By using them as a VPN, you hide your internet traffic from anyone who is listening in on any of the networks that sit between you and the website you are visiting. This protects your privacy, prevents the authorities from getting a list of the web sites you've visited, and stops technically savvy adversaries from easily reading some of your internet traffic.

Instructions

What you should know

  1. We recommend connecting to WARP by default and leaving it on unless it interferes with your ability to connect to services.
  2. WARP is free to use and has no bandwidth caps. WARP+ is a premium paid service which increases speeds.
  3. Unlike most traditional VPNs, WARP does not hide your IP address. WARP should thus be used to improve speeds on lower quality connections, or enhance your security, but it is not ideal if your goal is to protect your privacy.
    • If you do need to hide your IP address (and that's worth USD 10 / month) we recommend using ExpressVPN.

What you should prepare

What you should do

1. 💻/🖥️/📱 Switch between 1.1.1.1+WARP and 1.1.1.1 modes

When using the main toggle on the 1.1.1.1 app, you are actually controlling two things - 1.1.1.1 and WARP - read "Rationale" above for the differences. We believe you will always want to keep using 1.1.1.1, but sometimes apps or services don't work well over WARP, so you want to have to ability to turn it off.

Android and iOS

On your Smartphone, this is how you configure and control WARP:

  1. Tap the menu, to access the settings - here you'll see 1.1.1.1 and WARP listed with a checkmark next to the one currently selected.
    • This checkmark controls whether you are only using 1.1.1.1, or using 1.1.1.1 and WARP when you turn the big toggle on the app's main screen on.
    • We recommend that you leave this checkmark on WARP, but it you want to stop using WARP but keep using 1.1.1.1, then select 1.1.1.1.
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Windows

On Windows 10, this is how you configure and control WARP:

  1. Open the WARP control panel by clicking on the (orange) cloud in the taskbar notification area.
    • Press the little arrow to open up the hidden icons if you can't find the WARP cloud
    • If there is no cloud, launch WARP by pressing the windows button, typing "WARP" and launching it. Now the WARP cloud icon should appear in the notification area.
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  2. Tap the "cog" icon to access the settings - here you'll see 1.1.1.1 and 1.1.1.1 with WARP listed with a checkmark next to the one currently selected.
    • We recommend that you leave this checkmark on 1.1.1.1 with WARP, but it you want to stop using WARP but keep using 1.1.1.1, then select 1.1.1.1.
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2. 📱 Exclude Specific Apps

Certain apps will behave poorly (i.e. have connectivity issues) when connected while WARP is turned on. This feature is only available on Smartphones. Let's have a look at the connection settings, and see how to work around this:

  1. From the main screen, tap the "menu" icon to access the settings
  2. Tap "Advanced"
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  3. Tap "Connection options"
  4. Tap "Manage excluded apps" - this is where you can select apps which you would want to always be excluded even if you have WARP turned on.
    • For some apps (e.g. Netflix, YouTube, Google Photos) you won't have a choice as they are permanently excluded from using WARP.
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  5. Tap "Manage" to add any of your apps to always be excluded from using WARP.
    • We recommend to only come back here to add apps if you discover that they don't work well over WARP. So for example, if an app has connectivity problems while WARP is enabled, and toggling WARP resolves the issues, come back here to exclude the app, and then turn WARP back on.
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3. 📱 Block Malware

You can give yourself additional protection while browsing by blocking Malware. This feature is only available on Smartphones. Let's take advantage of it:

  1. From the main screen, tap the "menu" icon to access the settings
  2. Tap "Advanced"
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  3. Tap "Connection options"
  4. Tap "DNS Settings"
  5. Tap "1.1.1.1 for Families"
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  6. Tap select "Block Malware" or "Block Malware and Adult Content" - this will prevent some (but not all!) of that type of content from loading, protecting you from potentially being infected by Malware.
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