Every
computer on the Internet has a unique IP address allotted to it which makes it
possible to trace it back to its exact location. Even though the concept of IP
address has been designed for its transparency and traceability, in some cases
this questions the privacy of the Internet users where one would not like to
reveal his/her identity to the outside world.
Well, if you are one such person who is in search of ways to hide your IP address, then you are at the right place.
In this post, I will discuss some of the easy and popular ways to mask your IP
address so that your identity and privacy is kept safe.
Why
Hide IP Address?
1. By
hiding the IP address, people can browse websites anonymously without leaving
the trace of their identity.
2. To
access websites and portals that are not available to the IP address’s Geo
location.
3. Stay
safe from intruders and hackers by showing a fake IP to the world.
4. Hiding
IP means hiding geographical location.
5. Hiding
IP prevents leaving a digital footprint of their online activity.
How to
Hide Your IP?
Some
of the most common ways to hide IP and safeguard your online identity are
discussed below:
1.
Using a VPN Proxy – The Safe and Secure Way to Hide Your IP
Using
a trusted VPN service is the best way to conceal your IP address during your
online activities. Here is a list of most popular and highly reliable VPN
services that you can go for:
•
Hide My Ass VPN – Hide My Ass is one of the most popular and trusted VPN service
that allows people to easily conceal their IP address and protect their online
privacy.
•
VyprVPN – VyprVPN offers the world’s fastest VPN services to make it
possible for its clients easily conceal their real IP and supports wide range
of operating systems including Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.
- CyberGhost - My favorite VPN provider
The
following are some of the advantages of using a VPN service over any other
method of concealing your IP address:
1. In
addition to hiding your IP, a VPN service encrypts all your web traffic to keep
you safe from hackers and intruders.
2. Unlike
other IP hiding methods (discussed in the latter part of this article) which
affects your speed of browsing, a VPN service keeps your Internet speed fast
without affecting its performance.
3. You
have a long list of countries and states to select your IP address from as your
place of origin. For example, if you are originally from United Kingdom, you
may choose an IP address that belong to United States so that the websites that
you visit will see you as from US and not UK.
4. By
selecting an IP address of your choice, you can easily bypass location blocks
and even access restricted websites that are not available for your country.
2.
Website Based Proxy Servers
This
is another popular way to quickly mask IP address on the Internet. Since it is
a web based service, users need not have to install any piece of software
program on their computer. The following are some of the popular websites that
offer free services to obscure your IP address:
The
downside of using these free services to mask your IP address is that most of
them become overloaded and are too slow to use. In addition, some of them will
not offer a secured connection (SSL) and you will often be presented with
annoying ads and pop-ups during the course of your browsing.
3.
Browser Configured Proxy Servers
There
are hundreds of freely available open proxies that can be found on the
Internet. You can obtain the IP address of one of those freely available proxy
servers and configure your browser to start hiding your original IP address.
However, as they are openly available to public, most of them are either dead
or perform too slow under normal conditions.
Which
Service to Choose?
I
have made my sincere attempt to present readers with all the available options
to successfully hide the IP address on their computers. If you only want to
conceal your IP address for a specific amount of time and are not concerned
with the performance, go for the free web based services. On the other hand, if
you have the necessity to hide your IP on a regular basis, need high security
and performance, go for paid VPN services like Hide MyAss or VyprVPN.
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