These are two excellent articles that summarize both the problem and related fixes. Some things to clarify:
- This is not a “bug” – WebRTC is working perfectly. Disable it and you might impact your browser’s ability to stream media
- This can be mitigated by a VPN company (good on them if they do), but it’s not a VPN provider issue either. Your web browser is leaking, not their service.
- It can be both mitigated and switched on and off so that you have control, solving the problem.
- One of the articles stated and it bears repeating : never use a free VPN service.
Browser plugins exist for both Firefox and Chrome (not IE of course) that can toggle the WebRTC protocol. If you use a VPN, you need to take the extra step to download, install and work with these blocking plugins or there’s no point in your connecting via VPN anyway.
To see it in action / check if your internal IP address is “leaking”: https://ip.voidsec.com/