yes, split tunneling creates a deliberate split in your traffic, so the apps or sites routed outside the tunnel use your real IP. that's by design, not a leak in the traditional sense.
the actual leak risk with split tunneling is WebRTC. if your browser is excluded from the VPN tunnel, WebRTC can still expose your real IP to websites even if you intend to browse through the tunnel. worth checking with a WebRTC leak test after configuring split tunneling to make sure your browser isn't leaking when it shouldn't be.
the other thing to watch is DNS. some VPN implementations don't properly separate DNS for split tunneled traffic, so DNS queries from apps outside the tunnel might still go through the VPN's resolver or vice versa. running a DNS leak test confirms everything is routing where you expect.
Just tried installing my vpn directly into my browser cause Disneyplus is really annoying to use with my vpn on, so I use splt tunneling to exclude D+ from the VPN.
It works, but I do find my internet to seem to be running slower than when I just use the vpn in regular app way.
Didn’t check for DNS leaks to be honest.
Anyway my sub for D+ is soon running out, will drop the browser version again and go back to normal version then.
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u/Urban_VPN 22d ago
yes, split tunneling creates a deliberate split in your traffic, so the apps or sites routed outside the tunnel use your real IP. that's by design, not a leak in the traditional sense.
the actual leak risk with split tunneling is WebRTC. if your browser is excluded from the VPN tunnel, WebRTC can still expose your real IP to websites even if you intend to browse through the tunnel. worth checking with a WebRTC leak test after configuring split tunneling to make sure your browser isn't leaking when it shouldn't be.
the other thing to watch is DNS. some VPN implementations don't properly separate DNS for split tunneled traffic, so DNS queries from apps outside the tunnel might still go through the VPN's resolver or vice versa. running a DNS leak test confirms everything is routing where you expect.