Everything you do online, like the websites you visit, apps you use, browsing history, and more, can be seen by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and snoopers.
Your IP address is a unique address given to you by your ISP that is used to track you online. Each device connected to the internet has a unique IP address. Think of an IP address like an ID card number that people can use to see what you are doing online.
With your IP address, your online activities can easily be tracked, along with your geo-location. Thanks to the IP addresses, websites and advertisers can also target you with local ads as websites sell the collected data (including IP addresses) to advertising companies to make money.
So, if you care about your privacy, you need to hide your IP address from internet providers, advertisers, and more.
In this blog, we will discuss a few ways to hide your IP address from websites online.
Use a VPN
The best way to hide your IP address is by using a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN is an effective tool that masks your real IP address and reroutes your online traffic through a third-party server located in a different region. There are plenty of best secure VPNs recommended by VPNRanks that you can check out to hide your IP address today.
A VPN is software that reroutes all your data through a VPN server that is located in another region. During the process, your internet traffic passes through an encrypted tunnel, and you are assigned a new IP address. For example, if you have connected to a UK server, you will be assigned a British IP address. This way, when you visit a website, it will make it look like the traffic is coming from the UK.
VPNs also offer thousands of servers all across the world, so you can practically get any IP address you want. There are also amazing NordVPN Black Friday deals available to unblock restricted websites like streaming sites.
For example, if you want to access a website that is only available in the UK (such as BBC iPlayer), you can connect to a UK VPN server, and it will assign you a UK IP address. This way, you can trick British websites into thinking you are trying to access the site from within the UK.
So, in short, by using a VPN, you can access any website you want securely. It will also help you bypass government-imposed restrictions and censorship on the web.
Use a Proxy
The best way to hide your IP address is using a VPN. But, if you want to try other methods, you can also mask your IP by using a proxy service. Proxy also acts as a middleman between your device and the website you are visiting. When you are connected to a proxy, the websites cannot see your real IP address and see the address of the proxy server instead.
Proxies are usually SSL, SOCKS5, or SSH. These proxies can help you hide your IP address from websites, but they lack encryption. Proxies also don’t hide DNS traffic, so the requests from websites still go to third-party DNS servers, and they can see your actual IP address. Also, in case of a sudden connection drop, your IP address could be exposed.
Use Tor
You can also hide your IP address from websites by using Tor. Tor (The Onion Router) is a decentralized worldwide network that encrypts your internet traffic. However, only your browser traffic is encrypted, and anything you do outside the browser remains un-encrypted. Tor reroutes your traffic through a random sequence of nodes that act as a proxy server.
When you visit a website, it can only see the IP address of the last server called exit node and not your real IP address. Each time you open a website, the sequence of servers changes, making it impossible to track you online.
You can download the Tor browser, and it works just like any other browser (Chrome, Firefox). The only drawback is that Tor is slow and is not suitable for torrenting, gaming, or streaming.
Ask your Internet Service Provider to Change Your IP
Your ISP assigns you an IP address when you join the service. So, if you want to change your IP address, you can ask them to give you a new one. There are two types of IP addresses that are assigned to you by your ISP:
- Static IP address
- Dynamic IP address
A static IP address is hard to change, but dynamic IP addresses can be changed easily because these are shared. In the case of a dynamic IP address, you will get multiple IPs to choose from, which is great for hiding your real IP address. However, keep in mind that your ISP might ask you a lot of questions before changing your dynamic IP address, like why you have made the request.
Conclusion
These are four easy ways to hide your IP address from websites and third parties. Among these, using a VPN is the most effective and fool-proof way to make sure your real IP address remains hidden when you are online.
A VPN also offers data protection through encryption, and you can easily change your IP address within minutes and choose an IP from any location you want.
