How to avoid leakage of true IP while using a VPN on Windows?
In this video few steps are shown to stop leakage of true IP while using a VPN on Windows machine. https://steemit.com/ip-leak/@r3b37/are-you-sure-about-your-privacy-and-anonymity-using-a-vpn-on-windows
If you are using a personal VPN for safe and secure (browsing without revealing your true IP address) on a Windows machine then you need to take care of few things. The VPN might stop working for some reason and the applications will try communicating but they may use your ISP this time and thus leak your true IP. There can be some other scenarios as well in which the true IP is leaked, like accessing a page using Firefox or Chrome which can trace your true IP if WebRTC is enabled and working. So we will discuss a few things here which will make your VPN usage more secure on a Windows machine.
- Disable IPv6 <https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929852>
- WebRTC Test-> Check if true IP is leaked in Chrome and Firefox <https://hidester.com/webrtc-ip-leak-test> and fix the issues as per the solution described on that page
- Now, the best way to avoid leakage of your IP is to configure the Windows Firewall so that it only allows connections through the VPN tunnel and block all non-VPN traffic. So, the first steps is to ensure that you are not using any other firewall and disable webshield, web protection or any other tool mostly inbuilt in AVs to protect your online activity. If you are using AirVPN then you can use the ‘network lock’ feature to achieve this and there is no need to manually configure the firewall. For other users you need to create some inbound and outbound rules in the firewall as per your VPN settings and IP addresses. You can install AirVPN and try the network lock to see the rules created in the firewall and accordingly modify them and create new rules for your VPN. You can read more about this here.
- And if you are lazy like me and don’t want to configure your firewall and repeat this setup on each machine, you can try this shortcut:Block Non-VPN Traffic.bat
route delete 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1
pauseUnblock Non-VPN Traffic.bat
route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1
pauseYes! You just need these 2 batch files and execute them accordingly. Please note that ‘192.168.0.1’ may change as per your local network settings. You can read more about this here. - There is a DNS leak involved as well, so there are some VPNs which might provide you some protection from this leak but if they don’t you need to modify the batch files as per the instructions in this article.
I am not advertising or promoting any VPN here so please consider all the references as something I used in my research. You can select your VPN considering your usage and the features or options you need.