What is WebRTC? (with Solutions to prevent IP Leak)

A VPN or Virtual Private Network is one of the better solutions to surf the web without any security/privacy concerns. A VPN literally encrypts the internet data thereby safeguarding it from any prying eyes or hackers. However, you can never feel invincible when using a VPN due to un-known or yet to be discovered leaks. Ever heard about WebRTC?

Protect against WebRTC Leaks

What is a WebRTC?

A WebRTC or a Web-Real Time Communication is nothing but an API definition that supports activities like video sharing/calling, audio calling, file sharing etc within the browsers. One of the recent findings is that any WebRTC integrated browser can sniff out the IP address of any user irrespective of whether he/she is using a VPN - This is a flaw within the browser and not that of the VPN.

WebRTC Compatibility

• Complete compatible with Chrome and Firefox
• Not compatible with other browsers like IE, Opera Mini etc, however, it can be integrated by using respective plug-ins.

How WebRTC exposes your IP?

The WebRTC integrated with the browser fires a series of javascript request or commands to the respective Session Traversal Utilities for NAT or STUN server. The STUN server responds by sending a packet entails the IP address tagged with the original request. Apparently, iOS and Android users are immune to WebRTC IP leaks issue.

Currently, there are several plug-INS for firefox and Google chrome for addressing this IP leak issue. The fact that commands to the STUN servers are not fired via the usual XMLHttp channel is one of the main reasons that make it really difficult to resolve the issue of IP leak via WebRTC using plugins. Solution to WebRTC leaks As mentioned earlier, the ideal solution to alleviate the concern of WebRTC IP leak is by using respective plugins. The task of choosing the right one from a bunch of similar plugins that claims to offer the same functionality can be cumbersome. Therefore, it is essential that you to dig deep into the respective reviews and keep the below listed factors in mind.

• Choose a plugin that is been downloaded the most since, that is the one most likely to come up constant updates.
• Check for plugin updates and update as soon as once it’s available.

You can alleviate the concern of WebRTC leaks by tweaking your firewall setting to ensure that the communication with internet only occurs through a secure and constantly monitored tunnel. You can also try and block the WebRTC leaks in Mozilla FireFox Manually by following these steps:

• Search the Search bar with the command ‘about.config’
• Go to ’media.peerconnection.enabled’ and set it to false.

Popular Plugins to Block WebRTC

WebRTC Leak Prevent and Disable WebRTC are the two popularly used WebRTC leak prevent plugins for chrome and firefox respectively.

With the right VPN Service Provider and WebRTC Leak prevention plugin, you can literally surf the with zero concerns about security or privacy.