What is in an IP address? You might not see this coming, but a simple combination of a few alphanumeric characters carry much information within.
An IP address is similar to your home address. Like the address of your home indicates where your home is, an IP address provides the whereabouts of your electronic device connected over the internet.
An IP address is essential, so much that without it your computer won’t be able to communicate with other devices and servers on the network. This makes it easy to conclude that an IP address contains crucial information which if revealed, could risk your identity online.
What can someone do with your IP? Well, the possibilities are endless.
What Can Someone Do With Your IP and 6 Ways to Hide It
As a matter of fact, an IP address can help third-parties to track you. Your IP can also help hackers in accessing your information, installing malware on your systems, and compromising with your identity online.
This is why it is necessary to hide your IP address. Many individuals also prefer to hide their IP to prevent web tracking, to avoid leaving a digital footprint, and to circumvent geoblocking.
However, how can you do it? Let’s find out 6 ways to hide IP.
How to Hide Your IP Address – 6 Ways to Hide IP:
- Use a proxy server
This is one of the easiest and best ways to hide your IP address. All you need to do is connect to a reliable proxy server, and a proxy would work by rerouting your browser. If you would like to dive into proxy world – oxylabs is probably the best place to start out!
Essentially, a proxy server acts as an intermediary between your computer and the server – so that a communication request made by your computer first passes through the proxy server. The destination server interprets the proxy server as the only source from where the request originated.
In this whole process, your IP address remains hidden. However, it is essential to choose a proper proxy server that is reliable and provides secure services.
- Using public WiFi
This method might sound a bit weird, but it works. An IP address doesn’t travel with you. As you connect to different networks, your IP address keeps on changing. Thus, visit a coffee shop or hotel lobby and connect to the open WiFi network there.
This would hide your usual IP address for as long as you are connected to this new network. Although an easy way to change your IP, this method is a bit risky. Third-parties might intercept your network and steal your information that you share over WiFi if the network is not secure enough.
- Use mobile network
Similar to the WiFi network, you can also connect to your mobile network to change your IP address. As it is a different network and system, it has a different address.
Undoubtedly, this method is not a substitute for your usual network. Unless you have unlimited data that you can share for all your devices, then it can still work out pretty well.
- Use a VPN
A VPN also called virtual private network can help you in hiding your IP address. A VPN works by routing your traffic through a secure tunnel such that all the information and traffic passed through this tunnel remains encrypted. This method is so secure that even your internet service provider would not be able to intercept your web traffic.
Using a VPN is costly, and free VPNs do not work fine.
- Call your internet service provider
If none of those mentioned above methods work fine for you, you can request your internet service provider to change the IP for you. All you need to do is call them and ask for a change. However, in some instances, you might be required to answer a few questions before they change it for you.
- Unplugging your modem
If your internet service provider refuses to change your IP, another easy method is to reboot your modem. This method will work fine if you have a dynamic IP. All you need to do is reconnect your modem for a while and then connect. More often than not, by doing this, you will be assigned a new IP range.
However, the downside associated with this method is that you would have to live without the internet for many hours.
The Wrap Up
Whether you want to hide your location or access geo-blocked content, hiding your IP address might prove to be the ultimate solution. Hiding IP also helps you negate IP bans. It can also prevent you against targeted attacks.
Thus, changing your IP address is an essential step if you want to stay safe and secure online. Although we discussed a range of methods through which you can hide your IP, we would recommend you to use a proxy server to mask your IP address from hackers and third-parties.
