The longer we spend time online, the more every site we visit gathers extra information about us.
Social media sites being one of the worst for harvesting data about our likes, dislikes, and anything else they might find useful to use.
From all this, websites can target ads specific to users or display what they think users want to see.
As this goes on, these companies have more control over what you see and how you will interact with their sites.
A lot of this information harvesting comes from your IP address, so carry on reading if you want to see how you can hide your IP and reclaim your online privacy.
Other Reasons We Need to Block Our IP Address
There are a couple of different reasons why users need to make sure their IP address is hidden. This can include torrenting and the downloading of content that is copyright protected.
Additionally, streaming sites showing the same sort of content will also be a need for trying to remain anonymous.
Internet providers can see which users are doing what. With the amount of data retention carried out in most countries, they can also build up a profile of not so legitimate activities users carry out online.
Best Ways Users Can Hide Their IP Address
Using Proxy Servers: These can be a great way to mask your IP address quickly. What they do is act as a bridge where all your traffic goes on the way to its destination.
Using this method, you can connect to any proxy server around the globe. Although they can help mask your IP address and access geo-blocked content, they lack overall security and won’t hide your IP address.
The TOR browser is named after “The Onion Router,” which was the original project. It is free to use, and when in use, it connects to many volunteer-run servers.
With this, you will be assigned a private IP address for the duration of your browsing session.
Many people have heard of the TOR Browser because it is associated with the dark web. The websites on this network will have different domain names because they are generated randomly.
The downside to using this browser as a means of being an IP address hider is, you will be tarred with the same brush as cybercriminals and anyone who carries out illegal transactions.
The other downside is it suffers from being slow because your data is bounced around various locations to prevent your digital footprint from being traced back to you.
Using Public Wi-Fi Zones
Because your IP location can be traced back to your home or device connection by your ISP, it will take something severe for users to hide their IP address completely.
For a quick way, public Wi-Fi is an ideal IP scrambler because you will connect to the internet via the public IP address.
Although a public IP can be convenient, other users take advantage of visitors to these places. Hackers frequent these places and perform IP lookup operations which can find devices that are not secure.
These public connection points might suffice for a while. Still, for any online activity that requires banking or account logins, they also need further protection against hackers or any government agency that might be scanning the networks for information.
Using a VPN to Hide My IP Address
The best way to hide on the internet is to appear as if you don’t even exist. The only way you can honestly do this is by using a VPN service.
When you are connected to a VPN, all of your data is encrypted by military-grade encryption. No ISP or agency can see what you are doing or what sites you are visiting.
This, in effect, gives you a private IP address which leads to nowhere in the eyes of anyone who is looking.
If you choose a server in another country, you will look like you are in the UK (or anywhere else) while you are actually on the internet in any US city.
Another function these VPN services offer is, they can be used on multiple devices. Now, you can visit your local Wi-Fi network and be safe from hackers.
These shady characters could even be sat on the table next to you, and they have no chance of knowing you are connected.
If you use ExpressVPN as an example, they hold no user logs of any kind and are based off-shore. This means it doesn’t matter who asks for user data; there is no way they have anything retained to hand over.
This top-tier VPN service also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you are free to try the service and do all you want without needing to pay a dime.
Other Ways to Hide Your IP
There are different ways you can hide your IP address, but these are not long-term and are not secure.
Any user can call their ISP and ask them to change their IP Address. If they change it, it won’t be long before this new IP has a profile built up. The whole point was to prevent your ISP from seeing what you are doing.
Another way is to unplug your router for a few minutes. IP addresses are assigned dynamically in most cases, so you will have a different external address once you reconnect.
A lot of information only deals with IPv4 addresses, and there are a few people forget about the latest internet protocol, which will eventually replace this earlier version.
Your IPv6 address is enabled on your system, and at the moment, you can go into your internet settings and disable this.
To be invisible with no one having the chance to track anything back to you, only a VPN delivers this security.
This is what they were designed for, and they are good at if you follow the recommendation above. Stick to the world’s best VPN, and no one will be able to find out your real IP while you are online.
