Question Is connection unprotected when using laptop wakes up from sleep while using SurfShark VPN?

[salilsurendran]

I love using Surfshark VPN but I don't have kill switch enabled. I connect to VPN. My laptop goes to sleep. I restart my laptop again and start browsing. Will the browser connect unprotected to the internet by any chance? The reason I ask is sometimes I notice such a behavior but I am not super sure.

 

[KingLoki]

If you have doubts you should do 'what is my ip' type check and see what location it's showing, the ip address and if the public ip is exposed. Do a dns leak test as well. Also test with vpn on if there is a problem.

Try
https://browserleaks.com/ip

 

[bill001g]

Windows actual sleep mode pretty much just takes a image of what is running in memory at that instant and writes it out to disk. When it wakes up it loads memory back to the same state.
The vpn program along with everything else on the machine should be back in the exact same status. I think for sleep state you are ok.

On actual reboot there is a short period of time when the machine is running stuff but the vpn software has not loaded. You will not be able to type something into a browser that fast but there are times the browser itself may refresh a bunch of pages before the vpn is up. I have seen this on windows update. It will launch the browser which then acts as though it crashed and reloads a bunch of stuff. This can happen before the vpn software has fully connected. I have seen the vpn software connect partially though this process making quite a mess since parts of the pages were loaded on the IP address before and other were loaded on vpn ip address.

In addition I have found windows itself will bypass some vpn software.

Because of all the complexity of running a vpn on the same machine as your application I tend to run VPN on a router. That way no setting or program on the pc will bypass the vpn.

 

[KingLoki]

A kill switch will basically achieve the same result. Will not allow any software to connect online unless vpn is connected. I run 'vpn always on' on my phone and nothing will connect unless vpn is connected succesfully. On pc if your vpn allows, you can install the pc version of the vpn, along with the browser extension to create a double hop vpn e.g. will go through two seperate vpn servers at of your choice.