What WebRTC is
WebRTC is the browser technology behind video calls, voice chat and screen sharing on the web. To connect two people directly, the browser gathers "candidates": the network addresses it could be reached on. A WebRTC leak occurs when those candidates reveal a public IP address different from the one your VPN provides, which a website could read with a few lines of code.
What this check does
The check first reads the public address this browser is using, then asks the browser to gather WebRTC candidates and compares any public addresses among them with that address. It runs locally without an external STUN server, which is the kind of server video-calling apps use to discover your public address. That keeps the check private, but it also means a quiet result is not a guarantee about every calling app.
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| Additional public IP found | WebRTC exposed a public address different from your current one. Investigate, but note that a connection with both IPv4 and IPv6 can show two legitimate public addresses. |
| Same public IP only | WebRTC showed the address websites already see. No additional exposure was observed. |
| No public candidate observed | Only private or masked addresses appeared. Modern browsers often hide local addresses this way. |
| Unavailable | The browser blocked or does not support the check. Nothing about protection can be concluded. |
Can WebRTC leak my IP through a VPN?
It can in some setups, which is why many VPN apps include WebRTC protection and modern browsers hide local addresses by default. Private addresses such as 192.168.x.x and masked names ending in .local are not your public internet address. They are only meaningful on your own network.
How to reduce WebRTC exposure
- Turn on your VPN app's WebRTC or leak protection setting, if it has one, and use the VPN app rather than only a browser extension.
- Brave has a WebRTC IP handling policy setting under its privacy settings.
- Firefox lets advanced users turn WebRTC off in about:config, but that breaks video calls and screen sharing in the browser.
- Chrome and Edge have no simple built-in switch. Rely on your VPN's protection or a well-reviewed extension from a known publisher.
Turning WebRTC off entirely breaks web-based calls, so understand the trade-off before changing it. After any change, reload this page and run the check again.