What Is iCloud Private Relay and Is It Better than a VPN?

Jun. 14, 2021



While the first relay assigns an anonymous IP address, the second relay decrypts the web addresses and takes users to the destination. This way, no single entity can identify the user and the sites they visit. For the second relay, Apple has partnered with third-party providers.

From a technical standpoint, you should know that Private Relay involves an Ingress Proxy and an Egress Proxy. Ingress Proxy accepts connections from the internet and makes sure other servers don’t access your IP address and encrypts your internet traffic. On the other hand, Egress Proxy relays back to the internet while also preventing Ingress Proxy from seeing the websites you visit.

While Apple doesn’t name its content partners, user reports suggest that the company has partnered with Cloudflare, Akamai, and Fastly for the Egress Proxy or exit node.

Think of it as a VPN, but Apple’s implementation of Private Relay isn’t exactly the same as what you would find on a VPN. Check the next section to learn more on how Private Relay differs from a traditional VPN service.

For starters,Private Relay maps users to a different location in their region. This is unlike VPN, where users can choose the destination. To put that in perspective, you may not necessarily be able to access a website that’s banned in your country with Private Relay. That’s clearly not the case with a VPN where you can choose any supported location in the world to access geo-restricted content. So if you were planning to use Private Relay to watch thebest Netflix showsthat are not available in your country, you are out of luck.

And there’s the fact thatyou will have to stick to the Safari browser to use the benefits of Private Relay. Private Relay will not support otherbest browsers for privacyon iOS. So, what does Private Relay solve and why does it exist? Well, using a VPN requires users to trust the VPN provider. While using atrusted VPN serviceshould solve this, there are numerous shady VPN providers out there that are often secretly logging your browsing activity. That’s where Apple serves as a trusted intermediary with Private Relay.

“We wanted to provide many of the benefits that people are seeking when in the past they’ve decided to use a VPN, but not force that difficult and conceivably perilous privacy trade-off in terms of trusting it a single intermediary,”said Apple’s Craig Federighi in aninterview withFast Company.

Will Private Relay replace a paid VPN? No, you don’t get the ability to bypass geo-restrictions and browse with your desired location. Is it better than afree VPNin most cases? Yes, if all you want to do is browse the internet without being tracked and you happen to be a paid iCloud user who also uses the Safari browser, you could switch to Private Relay.

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap on the Apple ID preview card present at the top, andchoose iCloud.

  2. Under iCloud Settings, tap on Private Relay and enable the“Private Relay”toggle from the next page. You can now start using iCloud Private Relay with Safari browser. You could alsoinstall extensions in Safari on iOS 15to elevate the experience.

  3. Open System Preferences of your Mac andclick on “Apple ID”at the top-right corner.

  4. Under iCloud Settings, locate “Private Relay” andclick on the “Options” button.

  5. From the pop-up that appears now,click on the “Turn on Private Relay”button and hit OK. And that’s it. You can open Safari to browse the web using the service.

Although you shouldn’t expect the same speed as before, it doesn’t significantly slow down your internet speed and offers a fairly consistent browsing experience. You can download Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 app on Android (Free) and iOS (Free). Cloudflare also offers WARP+ for macOS and Windows users, sovisit the websiteright here.

Try Apple’s iCloud Private Relay on Safari

Try Apple’s iCloud Private Relay on Safari

So, that’s pretty much everything you should know before using iCloud Private Relay. As mentioned earlier, iCloud Private Relay is not a VPN killer, and paid VPN services are still superior in terms of features and flexibility. To learn more about otheriCloud+ features, check out our in-depth explainer linked here. You can also explore other amazing iOS 15 features, includinghow to screen share in FaceTime on iOS 15,blur the background in FaceTime video calls, and more.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.

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