IPcost

How to change my IP address

How can I change my IP to browse online while remaining hidden?

There are many reasons to hide your IP address: Hide your geographic location, prevent a website from tracking you, protect your data, bypass any content filter, ban or blacklist.

There are several ways to hide your IP address, which is the unique number assigned to the network connection of any device connected to the Internet.

1. Use a VPN service

Subscribe to a VPN offer from a specialized company and surf the internet with the IP address of the company instead of showing your real IP address. You will be hidden behind a VPN tunnel which will act as the intermediary link between you and the remote site.

There are many advantages to using a VPN service, such as high speed bandwidth, secure connection, private access to blocked sites and the ability to choose the country or even the city where you want to be located.

There are hundreds of companies that let you to rent a VPN but many of them are not always serious nor do they respect customer's data.

We have reviewed several services and recommend the following: NordVPN - SurfShark

2. Use Tor browser

TOR is a multi-proxy network that does not rely on specific proxy servers to process data. Instead, it uses connections from a multitude of other TOR users in order to hide the original user's IP. Knowing that millions of users share their IPs all over the world, the risk of tracing the origin of a web request is virtually impossible.

Tor browser (like Chrome, Firefox or Safari) is a free software to download on your computer. Please note that it is unstable and not recommended for daily use. You will experience slow loading times, the speed depends on the connection of other Internet users on the network, but it is an interesting alternative.

3. Use a proxy server

A proxy server (sometimes called an "open proxy" or simply "proxies") can be used to redirect your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer or Edge) to overcome the filters on the content at a business or a school.

There are risks associated with using free proxies to hide your IP address: many will slow down your internet connection, some are run on compromised machines and may not be legal in some countries.

There are however a multitude of free proxies on the internet, that you can find with a simple Google search.

4. Use public Wi-Fi

An IP address does not accompany you. So, if you just go to a cafe, bookstore, or hotel lobby and use their Wi-Fi, you will temporarily hide your usual IP address. How? You will use their network IP address as long as you are online.

However, your data is transmitted in clear, which means that it is recorded and stored by the internet operator which offers you the Wi-Fi connection.

We strongly advise you not to shop online nor verify your bank account. Use public networks to visit web pages that do not require identification and do not ask for personal information, these networks are not protected and an ill-intentioned person could intercept the data circulating on the network.