VPN Tests and Checks

[tarekma7]

The dirty secret of the VPN industry is that most VPNs leak.

One in-depth study found that 84% of VPNs will leak your IP address.

In other words, many of the VPN services that market themselves as privacy and security solutions are in fact leaking your IP address and/or DNS requests. These leaks leave you exposed, which in turn could put you in a dangerous situation depending on your circumstances and online activities.
Also concerning is the fact that many VPNs have broken features. This is often the case with “kill switches” that do not effectively block traffic or “IPv6 leak protection” that does not secure your IPv6 address. It only takes one leaked packet to expose your identity and activities.

In this guide we’ll cover two different levels of VPN tests:

1. Basic tests – These are the tests that anyone can run. Simply connect to your VPN and then hit the testing sites. Unfortunately, these basic tests will not identify all leaks (such as brief reconnection leaks).
   
   
2. Advanced tests – These tests require more technical proficiency to get everything setup correctly, but they will identify any leaks you may have with your VPN. ExpressVPN put together the best tools available for in-depth leak testing, which are open source and available on GitHub.
   

We’ll start with basic VPN test procedures to identify obvious problems.

Basic VPN tests

Below are basic steps for identifying:

• DNS leaks
  
  
• IP address leaks (IPv4 and IPv6)
  
  
• WebRTC leaks
  

With these basic tests, you are relying on the testing website to identify problems. But as we noted above, you may have leaks that the test website does not pick up, which is why the advanced tests are the best solution.
For basic tests, I like to use ipleak.net as a general all-in-one testing site (created by AirVPN) along with the different Perfect Privacy test tools.

Test for VPN leaks

To test for active leaks, simply connect to a VPN server and visit the test site. You are checking to see how the VPN performs when the tunnel is active and stable.
You can also simulate different interruptions to see how well the VPN does if network connectivity drops. For example:

1. Connect to a VPN server and load ipleak.net in your internet browser.
   
   
2. Manually interrupt your internet connection (disconnect the ethernet cable or WiFi) while the VPN client is running.
   
   
3. Reconnect to the internet and also load a few different test websites to see if your VPN is leaking upon reconnection.
   

This will help you to identify obvious problems with your VPN, but it won’t definitively identify all leaks (see advanced tests below).

VPN test websites

Here are a few testing sites you can use to check for different leaks:

• ipleak.net (IPv4, IPv6, WebRTC, and DNS)
  
  
• Perfect Privacy Test tools (IPv4 and IPv6, DNS, WebRTC)
  
  
• ExpressVPN leak tests (IPv4, DNS, WebRTC)
  
  
• test-ipv6.com (IPv4 and IPv6)
  
  
• dnsleaktest.com (use extended test)
  
  
• BrowserLeaks WebRTC Test
  
  
• ipx.ac (IPv4, IPv6, WebRTC, DNS, browser fingerprinting and more)
  

Now let’s see what a VPN leak looks like.

Identifying VPN leaks

When you use the testing site ipleak.net, it is fairly easy to identify leaks and problems, especially when you are connected to a VPN server outside your country. Note, the WebRTC leak test will show local IP addresses (usually beginning with 10.xxx or 192.xxx or sometimes an alpha-numeric IPv6 address that is also local). These are not leaks, but rather your local IP addresses. If you see your real (Public) IPv4 or IPv6 under the WebRTC section, then these are indeed WebRTC leaks.
Below you can see that I redacted the IP addresses in red where I experienced leaks with a VPN Unlimited server in the UK.

Read the full guide HERE

[LukeDavis]

I can recommend checking out this tool for testing your VPN and see if it actually works or not