VPNs don't hide your location: timezones, WebRTC and DNS leaks give you away
StewartalsopIII · x · 2026-09-28
- A VPN changes only one variable (IP); sites that care about detecting real location use dozens of signals.
- Timezone/locale: your browser timezone doesn't change with a VPN — a US IP with a West Africa system clock is an instant flag. Language settings, keyboard locale and Accept-Language headers also travel with every request.
- WebRTC leak: the browser protocol can expose your real local (sometimes public) IP to websites via JavaScript, bypassing the VPN tunnel entirely — most VPN users never check for it.
- DNS leaks: if DNS requests aren't routed through the VPN, they leak location info too.
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