isvpnworking.com

How do you know if your VPN is working?

The fastest way to check if your VPN is working is to look at the IP your VPN tells you it has versus the IP that websites actually see. If they match, and the country matches, and no leak tests fail - your VPN is working. If any of those three things disagree, your VPN is leaking somewhere. Our tool above runs all three checks at once, but the principle is something you can check manually too.

Why does my VPN say it's connected when it's not working?

Three reasons, in order of frequency: Browser cache. Your browser cached the previous IP-detection result. Hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R) and re-test. Split tunneling. Some VPNs have a feature where specific apps or domains bypass the VPN. If our checker domain happens to be in that list, you'll appear unprotected to us specifically. Disable split tunneling for the test. The VPN client is lying.

What about VPN browser extensions?

Browser-extension VPNs (the kind you install from the Chrome Web Store) are not real VPNs. They're HTTP proxies pretending to be VPNs. They only route browser traffic - not your other apps, not background processes, not even WebRTC in many cases. They're better than nothing for casual unblocking, but if you're worried about privacy or doing anything sensitive, install a real VPN application.

Free VPNs vs paid VPNs - does it actually matter?

For leak prevention specifically: yes, almost always. Free VPNs are funded by selling your data, injecting ads, or both. They have weaker leak protection because that costs money to maintain. We've tested dozens of free VPNs with this exact tool, and almost all of them fail at least one of the three checks it runs.

How often should I check if my VPN is working?

Realistically: once when you first set up a VPN, and once after each major OS update.