How to bypass VPN for specific websites and services on Windows

Last updated on November 10th, 2020 in Setup

If you use VPN on daily basis as you should and as you are encouraged by us, then you definitely have run it fairly simple, but annoying problem. There are sites & services that you need to access without VPN connection active. ( compatible with Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 ).

One would think that it is not an issue. What is simpler than switching VPN connection off when not needed and back on when resuming general use of the internet. Well, when you are in a rush, when you do many things at one or when you have multiple tabs open on your browser you might either forget to switch it off (or back on) or simply be torn… some tabs need VPN some don’t. Not to mention services that ban VPN and do threat with some consequences – ban – when users  access them via VPN servers.

If only there was a way to have it both…

Setup static routing and bypass VPN when needed!

Luckily for all of us there is a way to sort this problem. It will work in a similar way to SmartDNS (but has nothing to do with it!). SmartDNS knows that when you want to access certain sites, services like Netflix or Hulu your network traffic has to be rerouted via prepared proxy servers in order to make those services work. You can try similar thing and setup your Windows so that it know which data should not be send (and received) via VPN connection. Here is what you do.

1. Open up a command prompt. To do this is hold WIN+R, a box marked “run” should open. In the text field input cmd and then press “Enter” to be confronted with a command prompt.

2. In command prompt type route print and press “Enter”. You should see “Persistent Routes” at the top of the prompt. You’ll need to scroll up past this to what is called the IPv4 “Route Table” (it should be right above it). You can see in the middle the “Gateway” column.

3. You should see a number in the format of 192.168.XX.XX. Make a note of it and keep it somewhere safe.

4. Now you need to find the IP address of the website you want to bypass the VPN connection. Try to use ipaddress.com for this purpose. First it will show you details of your own (or your VPN if connected) computer. Below you will find field with name IP lookup – simply put there name of the website IP you want to find out and press Enter. Another way to do it (we try on ipaddress.com exmaple) is to return to command prompt. Once back in cmd terminal type ping ipaddress.com. After pressing “Enter” you will be met with the line “Pinging ipaddress.com [148.251.128.237]”. The IP address in the square brackets is what we need.

5. Time to create the routing rule. The syntax is as follows: “route add destinationIP gatewayIP”. Add the numbers collected to the line and youl’ll get route add 148.251.128.237 192.168.XX.XX and enter that into the command prompt.

6. Lets check if it all works. Connect to your desired VPN server and visit ipaddress.com it should show your real IP and correct location, nit the one of VPN since you are accessing this site bypassing VPN. If this is the case that means the routing rule is working and the website is indeed bypassing the VPN.

Please note that when doing the “route add” is a temporary thing. If you want to setup permanent rule in your system you need to add -p parameter andcomplete command should look like this:  route -p add 148.251.128.237 192.168.XX.XX.

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