So what exactly is iCloud Private Relay? Is it a VPN? Are there uses for other third party VPNs anymore? Is it system wide or just in Safari like the description on Apple’s website seems to suggest? What settings/toggles are there? How much is it affecting internet speeds?
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What is iCloud Private Relay?
- Thread starter RebelTrust
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This article explains it quite well:
Exclusive: Apple’s Craig Federighi on WWDC’s new privacy features
We talk to Apple’s software chief about iCloud Private Relay and other upcoming protections—and why regulation alone won’t help consumers defend their data.
I believe so, yes. Especially when wanting to change your location/hide your IP address in other apps than Safari.
Just in Safari for now.
By default, it's toggled on for Websites and Trackers, but you can also change it to Trackers-only or turn it off entirely.
My normal ping is 10-12ms and it increased to 30-35ms with Private Relay turned on. My download speed (180 Mbps with Private Relay) is only half of what it usually is when no Private Relay is turned on. Upload speed (60 Mbps) is close to the original speed (65-70 Mbps).
It appears they’re tunnelling traffic first to an Apple Server and then to Cloudflare so there is definitely going to be some additional latency and throughput loss. Still, a great addition to iOS
A reboot of my phone fixed this
It’s just a proxy service that route your traffic through two clusters of servers before sending Out to the destination site. It will NOT help you to watch geo-restricted contents, access restricted websites, or mask your true physical location, at least in the nation level. The anti-ad-tracking effect has yet to be seen, but don’t equate this service to a VPN as it is certainly NOT a VPN. However, if you use VPN specifically for privacy browsing, then you can consider ditching it for Apple’s in-house solution.
It still shows up as “upgrade” despite me been paying for iCloud storage for months.
Maybe I just need to restart.
Maybe a dumb question, but why wouldn’t it work for accessing geo-restricted content? If it routes your traffic through a US Apple server, you should be able to access e.g. the US Netflix library from somewhere else in the world. At least until Netflix gets around to blocking them…
It will route you via the closest datacenter to you so you'll appear from the country you are in at the very least.
The way this new service works, is by sending your network request to an Apple server first, then through Cloudflare, all within the geo-boundary of the country your Apple ID is in. Apple has made this very clear in their service introduction page.
Think of this for a second. If this Apple’s service can actually access geo-restricted contents, isn’t that defeat the entire purpose of geo-restriction? So US customers can enjoy Apple Music for cheap in other countries? WB, Disney and such would be very unhappy. The whole point of this service is your network request is sent from a random Cloudflare server with generic information instead of directly from your device with all of those IMEI stuff. VPN is still needed to access geo-restricted contents.
Thanks for this info. I’ve noticed that throughout the day I kept not being able to load sites, with it falling back to private relay off after trying to connect for about 20 seconds. Usually turning wifi off then on fixes it (presumably because it picks a new server or something)
I have turned it off on all devices. It actually killed WiFi totally on my iPad Pro. On my iPhone, it had a pop up saying that my WiFi Network (Spectrum) was incompatible with Private Relay. And it killed Nord VPN, even after Private Relay has been turned off.
Been working like a treat for me the last 2 days after being awful since WWDC. Consider giving it another shot in a week or so, it’s constantly getting better
Yeah, maybe with Beta 2, I'll try again. I did file some Apple Feedback.
It looks like this is going to be something I will only use when traveling and using less-than-trustworthy networks. The last thing I need is my day to day access being slowed down.
If you want to protect yourself with the iCloud relay, count on it being a little slow than you are otherwise used to. For me, privacy takes center stage.
The two options for IP are 1) "Maintain General Location" so local.. or 2) "Use Country and Time Zone".. so doesn't get you around geolocation limits since IP you get is minimally localized to your country.
I don’t know if it’s accurate, but I’ve read posts from other users that a number of VPN apps have been using APIs that have been deprecated in iOS 15. So not directly linked to Private Relay.
My VPN app (Mullvad) doesn’t work either. But the Wireguard app has been updated and does.