Ipleak,net

Their geolocation shows up in Montreal, and Torrent Address detection gives my VPN IP.

ipleak.net results

I’m looking to be as anonymous as possible on the internet. Unfortunately, I’m only as educated as I can be self-taught via the internet. In other words, no formal education in computers at this point. If you guys do start throwing around abbreviations & acronyms, you’ll lose me. But the rest I might get. 😀

Just found ipleak.net and ran a test. I have an account with the PIA VPN. However, ipleak returned a couple different IP addresses. My current VPN IP is in Montreal and that shows up fine.

However, ipleak also gives an IP address

• in the USA through their WebRTC detection, and
• a DNS Address detection IP also in the USA, closer to home this time (Los Angeles area).

Their geolocation shows up in Montreal, and Torrent Address detection gives my VPN IP.

So, do I need to be worried about the DNS Detection and the WebRTC detection? If so, how do I stop these?

I run Windows 7 and usually Google Chrome.

Ipleak,net

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What is a “DNS Leak”?

Each time your computer translates a hostname like eff.org to an IP address, it does so by using Domain Name System (DNS) servers. Those servers are supplied by your Internet Provider and almost always your ISP would be the one in control of them. While your Internet Provider can’t see exactly what you do when you visit a domain (like eff.org), if you’re using VPN, they can still see that you’re visiting it.
Some VPN Apps would not force the DNS requests through their own DNS servers and would expose the hostnames of domains/services you’re using to your Internet Provider.
While this affects all operating systems, Windows is especially vulnerable due to multi-home DNS system, which is what many VPN apps fail to anticipate. This goes against the common sense of privacy and so we recommend that you test your VPN provider for DNS leaks here with our tests. As long as the DNS servers in the results of our tests are not part of your Internet Providers network, then this is a good indication that your VPN is working fine.

What does “WebRTC Leak” mean?

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free, open-source project that provides web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (mainly video/audio) via simple application programming interfaces. Among some of the applications that use WebRTC are Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Discord, Amazon chime.
Unfortunately the STUN/TURN protocol (as defined in RFC 3489) which his part of WebRTC can easily reveal user’s IP address to malevolent web sites. Host Candidate Discovery via ICE protocol is another way web sites could try to obtain a user’s IP address via WebRTC regardless of VPN usage. Due to the continuous development of WebRTC it can be expected that future vulnerabilities that expose users’ IPs may come to exist for a short time until VPN providers apply a patch. Thus it is a healthy security habit to test your VPN for leaks with some frequency.

It goes without saying that if you care about online privacy you should buy VPN, however quite a few VPN Apps may leak your IP address by exploiting WebRTC. Our WebRTC Leak Test will check if your real IP address is exposed.

What is an “IPv6 Leak”?

For some time now there is a negative hype that the Internet is running out of IP addresses (each computer on the internet has an IP address), thus IPv6 protocol has been invented many years ago and gradually the Internet is moving house to IPv6, but it’s still few years away from fully making the switch. Some VPN Apps were created only with consideration to protect your IPv4 address (the one everyone has) and some try and fail to protect your IPv6 address (if you have one) and would therefore expose your real location via your IPv6 address to web sites/services. This is called an IPv6 leak and our web site shows if you have one.

Best VPN Recommendations.

Do you recommend any VPN service?

Check out BestVPN’s recommendations for Best VPN providers for 2018, all of which have been tested for IP leaks and have passed successfully:

Is your VPN secure? How to check for leaks

A trusted virtual private network is a great tool for security and privacy, but if it’s not configured correctly it may not be so private.

By Ian Paul
PCWorld Mar 20, 2018 5:10 am PDT

Image: Thinkstock

A trustworthy virtual private network (VPN) is a good way to keep your internet usage secure and private whether at home or on public Wi-Fi. But just how private is your activity over a VPN? In other words, how do you know if the VPN is doing its job or if you’re unwittingly leaking information to prying eyes?

To find out, you first need to know what your computer looks like to the internet without a VPN running. Start by searching for what is my IP on Google. At the top of the search results, Google will report back your current public Internet Protocol (IP) address. That’s a good place to start, but there is more to your internet connection and its potential for leaks.

Diving deeper

Your public IP address is one way private information can leak over a VPN, but you can also leak information via Domain Name System (DNS) queries, WebRTC, torrents, and geolocation. To see what you look like in your default state, visit IPLeak.net. This website checks all the previously mentioned methods for leaking data. Take note of all the data you see on this page so you can compare it to your VPN’s.

Now close this site, connect to your VPN, and navigate back to IPLeak once again to see what you look like over your VPN of choice.

Not all of these tests happen automatically. The torrent test, for example, requires a small torrent file (available via magnet link) to run before it can detect any potential leakage.

The geolocation test is helpful, but keeping your location secure is pretty straightforward. Just don’t allow any website to use your location while on a VPN. One way to do that is to specify a browser, Firefox for example, as your VPN-only browser. Then disallow location requests on that browser. Alternatively, you could use a browser extension that provides a fake location to websites that request it.

The most likely culprit for leaked information, however, is DNS. To navigate the web your machine requires contact with DNS servers to help translate website addresses from names to numeric IP addresses. Typically your PC automatically uses the DNS servers of your internet service provider. The problem is that if you’re using a VPN and leaking DNS through a local service provider, you can reveal enough information to point anyone spying on you in the right direction. That’s why VPN services often funnel their customers’ queries through DNS servers that aren’t connected to your ISP.

Diving even deeper

IPLeak is great, but there’s nothing like a little redundancy to ensure you’re really private over a VPN. As a second check against DNS leaks go to DNSLeakTest.com, and from the landing page choose the Extended test. This typically takes some time to complete, but it’s worth it as I have seen leaky results on this site that IPLeak didn’t catch.

If you are still seeing DNS servers from your VPN provider, and not your ISP, then you can be reasonably sure you aren’t leaking data.

Some top VPN choices

Many VPN services these days do a good job of preventing the various data leaks that could reveal your identity, and our top-rated VPN services should all work well. Still, if you’d like some specific advice, here are four VPNs that do a good job of protecting against data leaks on both Windows and Android. In most cases, you shouldn’t have to make any settings adjustments to the VPN, but if there are any notable settings to be aware of we will note them here.