Instantly check if your VPN is leaking your IP, DNS, or WebRTC data
A lot of the confusion behind "is my VPN working?" comes from not knowing what a VPN is actually designed to hide in the first place. It's worth separating that out clearly.
What it protects: a VPN encrypts the traffic between your device and the VPN server, and replaces your visible IP address with one belonging to the VPN provider. This stops your ISP from seeing which sites you visit (they only see an encrypted tunnel to the VPN), and it stops the websites you visit from seeing your real IP and rough location — provided none of the leaks this page checks for are happening.
What it does not protect: a VPN does nothing about browser fingerprinting — the combination of your screen resolution, installed fonts, browser version, canvas rendering, and other passive signals that can re-identify you across sites without ever touching your IP. It also does not stop a website from knowing who you are once you log into an account there (your VPN hides your network location, not your identity to services you've already authenticated with). And it does not encrypt anything after traffic leaves the VPN's own server — the VPN provider itself can technically see your traffic at that point, which is why provider trust and no-logs policies matter as much as the technology itself.
The DNS/WebRTC leak distinction, concretely: think of it as two separate doors out of the encrypted tunnel. A DNS leak happens when your device asks "what's the address for example.com?" directly to your ISP's resolver instead of asking through the VPN — so your ISP still learns every domain you visit, even though your actual page content stays encrypted. A WebRTC leak is different: it's your browser directly announcing your real IP address to a website (for peer-to-peer features like video calls), completely bypassing the VPN tunnel altogether. A VPN can fix one without fixing the other, which is exactly why this test checks them as two separate, independent checks rather than a single pass/fail.
Understanding this split matters because the fix is different for each: DNS leaks are usually solved inside your VPN app's settings, while WebRTC leaks are usually solved at the browser level (extension or built-in setting) regardless of which VPN you use.
A DNS leak occurs when your VPN fails to route your DNS queries through its encrypted tunnel. Instead, DNS requests go to your ISP's DNS servers, revealing which websites you visit even if your IP appears to be from the VPN. A good VPN should route ALL traffic — including DNS — through its servers.
WebRTC is a browser technology that allows peer-to-peer connections (video calls, file sharing). It can bypass your VPN and reveal your real IP address directly to websites — even when you're connected to a VPN. You can disable WebRTC in browser settings or use an extension like uBlock Origin to block it.
Not always. Many VPNs fail to prevent WebRTC leaks, DNS leaks, and IPv6 leaks. Running a privacy leak test while connected to your VPN is the only way to verify it's working correctly. If this test shows your real IP while connected to a VPN, your VPN has a leak. Try switching VPN servers or enabling the 'kill switch' feature.
(1) Use a VPN with built-in DNS leak protection. (2) Set your DNS servers to privacy-focused options like 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) or 9.9.9.9 (Quad9). (3) Enable 'DNS leak protection' in your VPN settings. (4) On Windows, disable SmartMultiHomed and LLMNR in network adapter settings.
(1) Install uBlock Origin and enable WebRTC blocking in its settings. (2) In Firefox: go to about:config and set media.peerconnection.enabled to false. (3) Use the Brave browser — it blocks WebRTC leaks by default. (4) Use a premium VPN that routes WebRTC traffic through its tunnel (NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Mullvad).