It Can Slow Things Down

While we’re willing to chalk this one up to its “beta” status, we’ve repeatedly encountered times when browsing becomes almost glacially slow when iCloud Private Relay is enabled.

This is understandable since your traffic is going through two other servers before it reaches its destination. Even though these should be scalable, high-performance servers, it’s likely that Apple is still tweaking things to keep up with the demand. We’re optimistic that it will get better once iCloud Private Relay is out of beta. However, for now, until Apple’s virtual road work is done, you should expect delays in your online traffic.

Note that even when iCloud Private Relay is working properly, you won’t necessarily be able to trust speed tests. These may appear lower when Private Relay is enabled since it limits their ability to open up multiple simultaneous connections in parallel.