VPN & Proxy Detector

Instantly check whether your connection is flagged as a VPN, proxy, or datacenter IP — and whether your VPN is leaking your real identity.

Press the button to scan your connection for VPN, proxy, and leak signals.

What Does This Tool Check?

This VPN detector runs three independent checks to determine whether your connection is masked or leaking your real identity:

IP reputation check — your public IP is cross-referenced against databases of known VPN exit nodes, proxy servers, and datacenter IP ranges. If your IP is registered to a hosting provider (AWS, DigitalOcean, Vultr, etc.) or a commercial VPN service, it will be flagged.
WebRTC leak test — your browser is asked to establish a peer connection. If your real IP leaks through the WebRTC protocol despite a VPN being active, it will be shown here. This is one of the most common ways VPNs fail silently.
Timezone mismatch — your browser's reported timezone is compared against the timezone associated with your IP's geolocation. A mismatch (e.g. your IP is in Amsterdam but your clock says Sydney) is a strong indicator of VPN use.

What is a VPN?

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a server in a location of your choosing. From the perspective of every website and service you visit, your traffic appears to originate from the VPN server's IP address — not your home connection.

VPNs are commonly used for:

Privacy — hiding your browsing activity from your ISP
Security — encrypting traffic on public Wi-Fi
Geo-unblocking — accessing region-locked content
Remote work — accessing corporate resources securely

However, many websites, streaming platforms, and online services actively detect and block VPN IP ranges. This tool shows you exactly what they see.

What is a WebRTC Leak?

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a browser technology used for video calls, file sharing, and peer-to-peer connections. By design, WebRTC discovers and transmits your real local and public IP addresses to establish direct connections — and it does this outside of your normal browser traffic.

The problem: most VPNs do not block WebRTC by default. This means your true IP address can be exposed to any website running WebRTC code, even when your VPN is active and your browsing traffic is fully encrypted.

How to fix a WebRTC leak

Browser extensions — "WebRTC Leak Prevent" or "WebRTC Control" for Chrome/Firefox disable the WebRTC protocol at the browser level
Firefox about:config — set media.peerconnection.enabled to false
Use a VPN with built-in WebRTC blocking — Mullvad, ProtonVPN, and ExpressVPN include this in their desktop clients

What is a DNS Leak?

Every time you visit a website, your device sends a DNS query — a request to translate a domain name (like speedtest.now) into an IP address. If your VPN is active but your DNS queries are still being sent to your ISP's DNS servers instead of the VPN provider's, your browsing habits are still visible to your ISP. This is called a DNS leak.

Signs you have a DNS leak

Your DNS server shows your ISP's name even when connected to a VPN
Multiple DNS servers appear, including ones from your home country
The DNS location doesn't match the VPN server's location

To prevent DNS leaks, enable the "DNS leak protection" setting in your VPN client, or manually configure your system to use your VPN provider's DNS servers (e.g. ProtonVPN DNS, Mullvad DNS, or a privacy-focused resolver like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1).

How VPN Detection Works for Websites

When a website wants to detect VPN users, they typically combine several signals:

IP reputation databases — services like ip-api.com, MaxMind, and IPinfo maintain lists of IPs associated with VPN providers, proxies, and datacenters. These are updated continuously as providers acquire new IP blocks.
ASN lookup — each IP block is registered to an Autonomous System Number (ASN) owned by a company. A residential ISP ASN is very different from an ASN owned by "Mullvad VPN AB" or "NordVPN".
Reverse DNS — the reverse DNS entry for many VPN IPs includes giveaways like vpn.nordvpn.com or exit.mullvad.net.
Timezone / browser fingerprint mismatch — as tested above, discrepancies between IP location and browser-reported timezone are a reliable signal.

Residential proxy services (which route traffic through real home connections) are significantly harder to detect and are increasingly used to bypass these checks.

Does a VPN Slow Down Your Internet?

Yes — using a VPN almost always has some effect on your internet speed, though the magnitude depends heavily on which VPN you use and where the server is.

Encryption overhead — your device must encrypt every packet before sending and decrypt it on receipt. Modern protocols like WireGuard are highly optimised and add minimal overhead, while older protocols like OpenVPN can be noticeably slower.
Server distance — routing all your traffic through a server in another country adds latency proportional to the physical distance. A Sydney user connecting to a London VPN server will see significantly higher ping.
Server load — popular VPN servers get congested, especially during peak hours, causing throughput to drop.

Want to measure exactly how much your VPN is affecting your speed? Run a speed test with your VPN on, then run another with it off and compare. See our guide on how a VPN affects your internet speed for a full breakdown.

VPN vs. Proxy: What's the Difference?

Both VPNs and proxies mask your IP address, but they work very differently:

Feature	VPN	Proxy
Scope	All device traffic	Single app or browser
Encryption	Yes (full tunnel)	Usually no
Speed	Moderate overhead	Generally faster
Detection resistance	Moderate (IPs are known)	Low (easily flagged)
Use case	Privacy, security, bypass	Quick geo-unblocking

Related Tools & Guides

IP Address Lookup Ping Test Speed Test VPN Speed Impact Guide