Are You Sure Your VPN is Working?

Use WhatIsMyIPAddress.com to Verify That It Is!

People who use VPNs want to ensure their VPN is working when they connect online. Because if for some reason, that hoped-for secure connection isn’t there, the user risks revealing their online location and their browsing habits to whoever might be watching at any moment.

The top reason people use a VPN is to protect their online privacy and security by encrypting (coding or scrambling) their internet traffic and masking their IP address. By doing that, they prevent hackers and other third parties from tracking their online activity.

So, if their VPN were to fail, then the extra secure, encrypted network they counted on wouldn’t be there when they need it most.

If you’re not exactly sure what a VPN is, get started here with our helpful VPN articles that cover the basics. Click here and see the VPN topics menu.

Verify that your VPN is working the sure and easy way.

Start with your VPN website page open in your browser, but have your VPN turned off, meaning you’re online but not connected to your VPN.

Have WhatIsMyIPAddress.com open in another Window or tab. (It might also be helpful to have something handy to write down numbers.)

Your starting point: Find your actual IP address.
Go to WhatIsMyIPaddress.com and note your IP address. It will be either an IPV4 or IPv6 number. Take note of it: that’s your current public IP address.
Also, look at the spot on the map that shows your approximate location. What you see is what shows online to anyone tracking your IP address.

Next, connect to your VPN. Open your VPN window and click “connect.”
Once you’re connected, it should display a “new address” number; make a note of it.
That new IP should be different from what it was on the WhatIsMyIPaddress.com page.
Compare the new IP address from the VPN to the IP you started with. They should be different.

Verify the VPN is working. Now double-check to verify that the entire internet will see your VPN’s new IP address.
Go to the WhatIsMyIPAddress.com tab or window.
Click the “refresh” icon, which is usually next to or in the address bar.
Then take note of the IP address when it refreshes. It should now match the new IP address your VPN provided,
If it’s a match, everything is fine. If the IP addresses don’t match, it means something is wrong.

If you’re VPN isn’t working, there could be a variety of reasons. Conduct an internet search on the topic, and you’ll find a variety of suggestions for troubleshooting the problem.

Your VPN is working (increasing your privacy and security) when your public IP address changes from its previous value after you connect to the VPN. And you want to make sure that it is.

Some IP address basics.

Very few people ever have to look up or know their IP address, either at home or at work. However, when remote working from home became common after the COVID-19 pandemic, many homebound workers needed to know their IP address so they could connect to their offices.

Here is just a quick review of IP addresses:

Any time you’re online—meaning connected to the internet—you have an active IP address for your device, provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP), which runs the network and connection.
That IP address is “public,” which means anyone on the internet you connect to can see your IP address, if they want to know it and know how to find it.
Without much difficulty, anyone you connect with online, from retailers to companies you do business with, can zero in on where you are (with a few miles or a few yards) from your public IP address.

Why you want a VPN and why you want it to work.

An IP address doesn’t reveal your name or home or office address. It is simply a digital address that allows you to send and receive data from your device to other people or websites on the internet. However, it does allow anyone on the internet to match your IP address to your location. And investigators or hackers could see the websites visited by your IP address.

Learn more about VPNs and IP addresses.

Many websites make it difficult to understand technical topics, such as VPNs and IP addresses. At WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, we strive to make our content both understandable and helpful. If we don’t get “into the weeds” on a technical issue, it’s typically beyond what the average consumer and citizen needs to know. There are always more places to find technical (and not helpful) content.

For more valuable resources on IP addresses and VPNs, see the articles and podcast episodes listed at WhatIsMyiPAddress.com Learning Center. Simply type in the keywords related to what you want to know about in the search box, then select the content from the results that appear.

It’s that simple.

Learning Center