> WebRTC leaks public IP address for VPN users

This is incorrect.

WebRTC data channels do not allow a website to discover your public IP address when there is a VPN in use. The WebRTC discovery process will just find your VPN's IP address and the local network IP address.

Local IP addresses (e.g. 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x) can potentially be used to "fingerprint" your browser and identify across different sites that you visit, like a third-party tracking cookie. However, this is a separate issue than exposing your real public IP address, and it's worth noting that the browser already provides hundreds of vectors for fingerprinting you (e.g. your installed fonts, screen resolution, browser window size, OS version, language, etc.).

If you have a VPN enabled, then WebRTC data channels will not connect to peers using your true public IP address, nor will it be reveled to the JavaScript running on the webpage.

At one point in time, WebRTC did have an issue where it would allow a website to discover your true public IP address, but this was fixed a long time ago. This unfortunate misinformation keeps bouncing around the internet.

There's now a spec that defines exactly which IP addresses are exposed with WebRTC. If you're interested in further reading, you can read the IP handling spec for yourself.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb-ip-handling-01

Thank you. That's good to know. So is that now the case in all browsers?

It's the case in Chrome, Firefox, and Brave. I assume Opera is the same since it uses Chromium under-the-hood. I don't know about Microsoft Edge.

uBlock blocks webRTC leaking. it's also way better and faster than the crummy adblock extension.

Well, I use Firefox, and just disable WebRTC :)

So does uBlock allow web torrents, while blocking webRTC leaks? I doubt it, because peers need to know public IP address. Unless you run a VPN client in the router, anyway.

I don't think it disables WebRTC, per se. I think uBlock prevents WebRTC applications from leaking your IP. Hangouts still works with WebRTC leaking disabled through uBlock, so that leads me to believe that's what's going on.

If feross is right about WebRTC no longer leaking IP, then maybe it's not necessary to prevent leaks with uBlock?