Does the Chrome App work as a VPN or Proxy?

VPN
1

I am aware the Chrome app only protects you when you browse on Chrome only …

…which is what I need because I don’t want other apps or windows update to connect to it (slows VPN down).

But what kind of protection is it? Is it just like a proxy that unblocks websites, or does it hide your IP, protect against DNS leaks… like a normal VPN?

2

If you open chrome://settings > Advanced settings, then you will see there are built-in Proxy Settings in the Chrome browser.

Windscribe will take control of these proxy settings and reroute all your traffic through whatever server you selected in the extension.

Traffic does not bypass this proxy if you have the extension enabled and connected. If there’s an issue with the connection to the proxy server, then the request simply doesn’t go through and you’ll see an error on the page.

It’s a secure proxy so your traffic doesn’t get exposed either. The only thing that can cause issues here is using WebRTC (we will fix this in the next major update, for now you can use this extension to block WebRTC traffic) as well as Flash player content (don’t use Flash, just don’t).

Both WebRTC and Flash work at a system level rather than a the browser level so they can bypass the proxy and use your real IP.

Finally, DNS requests go through our own DNS servers as well so that’s not going to be exposed either.

3

I agree. An in depth explanation of the Extension is in order.

4

If you are using BOTH the client and extension:

  1. With NO Double hop: which one is encrypting (or both). I assume it’s only the client.
  2. With double hop: how does that effect what/where encryption is taking place?
5

Thank you for your detailed explanation!

So would you say the Chrome app is more exactly a proxy, while the Desktop app is a fully fledged VPN?

6

Follow up question:
The browser plugins seem quite reliable in restricted environments. Do you use some sort of obfuscation?