WebRTC IP Leak Test Shows Your Real IP Even With VPN On

You ran the test and saw your real IP

You're on a VPN. You ran a WebRTC leak test. You see an IP address you recognize as yours — not the VPN's. That's a confirmed WebRTC IP leak, and your actual location is being exposed to every site that cares to check.

Here's what to do about it right now.

First: confirm it's actually a leak

Before panicking, confirm what you're seeing. A WebRTC leak test will show multiple IP addresses. Some of them are local IPs (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x). These are always visible and are not a leak — they're private network addresses that can't be used to identify your location.

The leak to care about is your public IP — the one your ISP assigns you. This is the IP that can be geolocated to your approximate location. Compare the IP shown in the "Public IP" section of the test to your IP without the VPN. If they match, you have a leak.

What to check on your VPN first

Some VPN clients have a WebRTC leak protection option. Check your VPN's desktop app settings — look for "Leak Protection," "WebRTC Blocking," or similar. If your VPN client has this and it's disabled, enable it and re-test.

ProtonVPN, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Mullvad all have this option in their clients. If yours does, that's the cleanest fix.

If your VPN doesn't have a client-side WebRTC option, or if you're connecting via OpenVPN/WireGuard without a client app, you need the browser-level fix.

Installing WebRTC Privacy Shield

WebRTC Privacy Shield is a Chrome extension that fixes the leak at the browser level. Install it from the Chrome Web Store.

After installation:

1. Make sure your VPN is connected
2. Visit browserleaks.com/webrtc
3. The test should now show only your VPN's IP in the public IP section
4. Your real IP should not appear

If you still see your real IP after installing, check that the extension is enabled (the icon in your toolbar should not be grayed out) and that the leak protection mode is set to "Default public interface only" or "Proxy" mode, not "Disabled."

Test again after every change

WebRTC leak tests are fast. Any time you change your VPN, update Chrome, or change extension settings, run the test again. Chrome updates occasionally affect WebRTC behavior and can re-introduce leaks that were previously fixed.

A useful habit: keep the browserleaks.com/webrtc URL bookmarked and run it whenever you start a session where IP privacy matters.

Why your IP matters even if you're "just browsing"

Your IP address can be used to:

• Geolocate you to city level (sometimes more precisely)
• Link sessions across multiple site visits
• Identify your ISP (which, combined with other signals, can be identifying)
• Undermine geo-restriction bypassing (streaming services, regional pricing)

If you're using a VPN for any of these reasons, a WebRTC leak that exposes your real IP undermines the purpose entirely.

Conclusion

A positive WebRTC leak test means your VPN protection has a hole. The fix is either enabling WebRTC leak protection in your VPN client (if available) or installing WebRTC Privacy Shield in Chrome. The test takes two minutes; the fix takes two more.