Check whether your DNS requests are leaking outside your VPN tunnel. A DNS leak exposes every website you visit to your ISP — even when your VPN is active and your IP is hidden.
When you use a VPN, all of your internet traffic — including DNS queries — should route through the encrypted VPN tunnel. A DNS leak happens when your device sends DNS queries outside the tunnel, directly to your ISP's DNS servers instead of the VPN's DNS servers.
This means that even though your IP address is hidden by the VPN, your ISP can still see every website you visit through your DNS requests. Your browsing history is exposed despite the VPN being active.
DNS leaks are extremely common. Studies show that over 68 percent of VPN users have detectable DNS leaks — most of them without knowing it. The only way to verify your VPN is not leaking DNS is to run a test like this one.