DNS Leak Test

What is a DNS Leak?

When you type a website address like 'google.com' into your browser, your device sends a DNS (Domain Name System) request to convert that human-readable name into an IP address. Normally, a VPN routes these DNS requests through its own encrypted tunnel to private DNS servers. However, a DNS leak occurs when some or all of your DNS requests bypass the VPN tunnel and go directly to your Internet Service Provider's DNS servers instead.

This means that even though your web traffic is encrypted through the VPN, your ISP can still see a complete list of every website you visit. DNS leaks effectively undermine one of the primary purposes of using a VPN — your browsing history is exposed to your ISP, and potentially to government agencies or anyone monitoring DNS traffic on your network.

How This Test Works

Our DNS leak test works by having your browser resolve a series of unique, randomly generated hostnames. Each hostname is unique to your test session, which means the DNS response cannot come from cache — your device must perform a fresh DNS lookup for each one. We then check which DNS servers handled those requests.

If the detected DNS servers belong to your ISP rather than your VPN provider, you have a DNS leak. If all DNS requests are resolved by your VPN provider's DNS servers or a trusted third-party DNS service (like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 or Google 8.8.8.8), your DNS traffic is properly secured.

How to Fix DNS Leaks