If you’ve downloaded iOS 15, you might have noticed something different about your iCloud account. Apple is upgrading all paid iCloud accounts to something it calls iCloud+. It includes several interesting new features on top of the existing iCloud storage, sync, and cloud features, but the most interesting might be something Apple calls iCloud Private Relay. At first, it sounds like a VPN: your web-browsing traffic is encrypted and sent through a relay to hide your exact location, IP, or the contents of your browsing traffic.
It’s not a VPN, though. Not quite. There are important differences, which we’ll describe here. But iCloud Private Relay may be enough for most people, giving the most obviousthis Private Relay feature is, how it works, and how it’s different from a traditional VPN.
