Change IP Online
How to hide your IP address on the internet
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The amount of searches for how to hide your IP address on the internet grow every year . It is an important technique for browsing the Internet securely, especially with the increased use of the Internet in everyday society . Much of what we do on the Internet is guarded – passwords, logins, secure pages, and even for many banking, business, and shopping transactions. The consequential increase in scammers and hackers has made these transactions an easy target. Hiding your IP address allows you to not only browse the Internet free of any of your activity being traced, but it also ensures the safety of any money related things you may be doing.
If you don’t know how to hide your IP address, there are a number of different ways. You can either mask your IP address using a proxy, or have a new one assigned dynamically by using a virtual private network (VPN) or through your own router. Both can increase the security and anonymity of your online activity.
Changing your IP address through the router is something completely different. It solves some problems but not all. For example, it gives you a new IP address to use if your address was blocked by a website. In this way, your previous Internet activity cannot be traced to you. However, the number of IP addresses available for your router to assign to you is limited, and it doesn't solve the problem of getting your IP address hijacked by identity thieves.
A more efficient method of hiding your IP address is to use a proxy. A proxy sits between your computer and the Internet and intercepts all traffic to and from your computer. Any traffic requests that your computer makes are sent to the proxy first.
If the request passes the proxy filters, then the proxy either serves it based off the information in its own cache, or if it does not have the information then it requests it of the network on your behalf. Prior to requesting the information, the proxy strips your IP address off the traffic request and replaces it with its own. This results in the IP of the proxy masking the IP address of your computer. While it is evident to server administrators that you are browsing through a proxy, your browsing remains secure.
This means that anyone spying on you, trying to steal passwords or other data won't see your original IP – they'll only see the IP of the proxy, making side-jacking or http jacking impossible. I know, it sounds kind of unreal and impossible, but did you know there are actually Firefox Add-ons out there that make this not only possible, but easy to do?
There are many free proxies out there. However, using free proxies comes with a bit of a risk. For starters, they'll probably limit your bandwidth, limit the amount of time you can use it, or be used as a sort of "funnel" to collect and trace IP addresses. They could even be a source of malware, aimed at infecting your computer. It doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen. That's why I recommend a trusted proxy like Securitales. I know, free stuff is great. But isn't your safety and ease of mind worth six bucks a month? Check out the Securitales site – there's even a FREE TRIAL to get you started.
Alternatively, you can use a virtual private network (VPN). These networks are highly secure and commonly used in the business industry, can be accessed both remotely and locally, and encrypt as well as tunnel information that is sent across the network. VPN servers assign an IP address to all the computers on the network. The IP address for your computer can then be changed in a number of ways depending on the provider.
Some providers change the IP address on computers at regular intervals, requiring no input from the user. Others change the IP address every time the user logs onto the VPN, making the simplest way to change IP address simply to disconnect and then reconnect to the VPN. Finally, many VPN providers offer a large number of different IP addresses across many different countries. These can often be switched free of charge and whenever desired.
There are a couple important things you can do with a VPN. Lots of people use VPNs to do something called P2P (person to person) file transfers. A lot of games, music, and movies are exchanged this way. Seeing as this is a very gray area of legality, it's important to stay anonymous. Countries that censor the Internet make it their first priority to block anonymous IP addresses. This usually starts with proxies. VPNs, though they do they reroute your traffic through a proxy server much like a proxy does, also add layers of data encryption and tunneling that proxies don't, making them much harder to detect, and even harder to block. Millions of people in China, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam use VPN's to bypass Internet censorship.
VPNs are also good for accessing restricted content. Because a proxy doesn't assign you a an IP address like a VPN does, they're pretty easily detected (as I mentioned above), so they can be blocked as well. VPNs however, assign each user an IP (even though they're shared), meaning that you can get past sites like Hulu, Netflix, and other TV streaming or gaming sites that restrict content based on geo-location.
Hiding your IP address on the Internet with a VPN also provides all the anonymity and protection of proxies, plus some. They can be installed on smart phones (like iPhone and Android), tablet computers, and a variety of operating systems for laptops and desktops (including Mac OS/X, Windows XP/Vista/7, and Linux)
There are tons of VPN providers out there. I've tried a few, and rather go into a long and boring list of VPNs, I'll give you my top three.
Hide My Ass – The most server locations and IP addresses available of the three on this list, plus free server switching. StrongVPN (shown below) may have more, but they're not all included in one package, they charge to switch servers (per month), and it's going to cost you more. At HMA there's a free proxy you can trust, and tons of cool anonymous surfing software available as well.
12VPN – They're got a very cheap package for US only IP addresses – only $79. Sure, it's about the same price as the Hide My Ass package, but 12VPN is easier to install, and they've got better customer service. If you want to get started right away, 12VPN is the way to go. There is absolutely ZERO skill involved in installing their VPN. There's also a World VPN package that has more server locations available.
StrongVPN – I know I kind of knocked them a few sentences ago for being expensive, but they've got a great all around service. One of the largest VPN companies out there, and have been for years, so you can bet they'll provide you with a fast and reliable VPN that's worth whatever you're paying. They've also got live support which is a big plus.
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