Tech Desk
Jul 26, 2024
If you have been receiving issues with the web browser on your Apple devices over the past hours.
Apple has announced that the iCloud Private Relay is experiencing an outage since 2 pm ET yesterday. According to the status page, it’s still unaddressed.
What is Cloud Private Relay?
Cloud Private Relay is a system bundled as part of Apple’s iCloud+ and Apple One subscriptions. It sends internet requests through two secure internet relays — one controlled by Apple and another by a third party.
All Apple devices create those requests when you’re browsing, regardless of whether it’s an iPhone, Mac or even a Vision Pro.
The general idea is by using this second relay, Apple is facing difficulty in recognising the users, as it is unable to view who users are or the kind of content they're seeing online. That means an outage like this is a problem and may be affecting your web browsing experience until it’s fixed.
Apple’s status page noticed that service may be “slow or unavailable” but only defines “some users are affected”.
Read more: Apple complies with US AI regualtions ahead of Apple Intelligence launch
However, it’s not clear how many affected users there are, or how global the issue is. But if the browser on your Apple device is not behaving as it should, and you have Private Relay enabled, this may explain some things.
If you don't have subscriptions to iCloud Plus or Apple One, or if you already have Private Relay disabled, then any browsing problems you might experience would expected to be due to something else, and they are most likely to be Wi-Fi or cellular signal issues.
How to switch off iCloud Private Relay
Simply head to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Private Relay. You then have the choice to Turn off iCloud Private Relay temporarily, which will switch the feature back on tomorrow morning, or you can switch off iCloud Private Relay completely.
That’s a more permanent solution and needs you to switch Private Relay back on manually.
