How to Test if Your Proxy is Leaking DNS: 2026 Setup Guide You configured a proxy. Traffic is routing through it. IP check passes. Job done? Not necessarily. DNS leaks are one of the most common ways a proxy setup can expose your real location and ISP while appearing to work correctly. Your IP changes, but your DNS queries still go home. This guide covers: What a DNS leak actually is at the network level How to detect one reliably How to fix it across different proxy configurations Programmatic detection methods with code examples What Is a DNS Leak? When you type a domain into your browser, a DNS resolver translates it into an IP address. Normally this happens through your ISP's DNS server. When you use a proxy, the expectation is that DNS resolution also happens inside the proxy network rather than through your local ISP. A DNS leak occurs when your operating system or application bypasses the proxy and sends DNS queries directly to your ISP's resolver.…