What is a WebRTC leak?
WebRTC helps real-time audio and video in browsers—and its connection setup can expose addresses outside your VPN path.
What WebRTC is for
WebRTC lets browsers talk peer-to-peer for calls, meetings, and some interactive apps. To punch through NATs, it gathers ICE candidates: possible addresses the browser might use, including local LAN addresses and sometimes reflexive public addresses.
How that becomes a leak
JavaScript on a page can often read those candidates. If your VPN does not cover every path the browser probes, a site may learn an address you intended to hide—classic “VPN connected, IP still visible” reports.
This is separate from a DNS leak, though both undermine the mental model of “the VPN hides me.”
What to do
- Test with a VPN leak check while connected
- Prefer full-tunnel modes and OS-level kill switches where available
- Understand that disabling WebRTC entirely can break legitimate apps—tradeoffs are real
Browser extensions that “force WebRTC through proxy” vary in quality; treat them as helpers, not guarantees.