content: Don't use your VPN's SOCKS feature. Use OpenVPN protocol always. I was hired to do some freelance programming related to implementing a socks capability to for an irc bouncer. While playing around with socks I wanted to see the traffic. In Linux run this simple script in node: Now use your "Networking" admin panel to set a manual proxy.  On the socks host line set the host to 127.0.0.1 for port 9500.  Run the script.  Browse the internet.  Obviously you won't get any web content back but read the outputed log.  Domain names in clear text.  Domain names, ip addresses, that all can go out clear text with socks. Socks is fine if it is on the same host.  Don't connect to a socks interface across a network.  That means tor running at 9050, you will use socks to connect to it but outbound on your network it will be the tor protocol.  This is fine.  Using a VPN's "socks" feature is not a good idea (some people do this because it is more lazy to configure for some).