Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is a program that helps facilitate certain browser-to-browser communication, specifically audio and video. It is built into many browsers, including Firefox, as well as Chrome and Opera. WebRTC poses a risk to VPN users as it could potentially expose their real IP address. As such, some providers offer WebRTC leak protection with their standard service.
Even when this is the case, it doesn’t always carry over to add-ons, so it’s something to look out for. Basically, if you have WebRTC enabled and don’t have WebRTC leak protection, you could be exposing your real IP to the sites you visit, even though you’re using a VPN.
Of the providers on our list, NordVPN is the only one with a standalone add-on that provides WebRTC leak protection. ExpressVPN’s add-on works alongside the VPN app, so you’ll enjoy WebRTC leak protection from that one too.
Even with the other extensions, thankfully there’s a fairly simple workaround. All you need to do is disable WebRTC. To do this, first enter about:config in your Firefox browser address bar. You’ll get a warning message about the risk of altering advanced settings. If you’re happy to go ahead, you can click I accept the risk!
In the resulting screen enter media.peerconnection.enabled in the search bar. In the Value column, if it says false, then WebRTC is already disabled. If it says true, you need to change it to false by double-clicking the column.
And that’s it. You can use a leak checker like our DNS leak test tool to see if your IP address is exposed.
Bear in mind that while WebRTC is disabled, you might run into issues when trying to use certain applications that rely on the program. If you need to enable it, simply follow the above steps and change the value back to true.