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Daniel - May 26, 2021
How To Hide Your IP Address Like A PRO!
This post focuses on the need to hide your IP address and how best you can hide your IP address.
An IP address is like a home address that tells your physical location or an address where you receive mails. Just as your home address is unique to the house where you live, so is the IP address unique to every device.
What Is An IP Address?
An IP address is a series of unique numbers assigned to your device by your ISP or network provider with which you communicate on the internet. Here is an example of how an IP address looks like ‘001.012.123.234. To view your IP address, visit a website like WhatIsMyIPAddress.
When you send data requests to a website, e.g., Facebook, Facebook responds and sends the requested data to your device via your IP address. Hence without an IP address, you wouldn’t be able to browse websites or watch your favorite TV show on Netflix because the data you have requested won’t get to you but will be ‘lost in transit.’
Why Should You Hide Your IP Address?
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Sometimes when walking back home, you would look over your shoulders to make sure nobody is tracing you home. In most instances, you’re always careful not to give out your house address to any random person who requests it; the same applies to your IP address.
Websites, government agencies, and hackers can trace your IP address to a physical location, track your activities online via your IP address, or serve you adverts.
The following are reasons you should hide your IP address:
Privacy and Security
Your IP address represents you online, government agencies can monitor your activities, and hackers can steal valuable data, including financial information from you, by monitoring your activities via your IP address. Therefore, hiding your IP address protects your privacy while you browse the internet securely.
Prevent third-party tracking
Have you ever wondered why you receive adverts tailored to your search history or activities online? Third-party websites or advertising companies track your online activities via cookies, browsing history, and other relevant browsing information. Therefore, hiding your IP address prevents such websites from tracking and collecting your cookies and browsing history via your IP address.
Bypass organizational or government censorship
Governments and organizations have ways of blocking or censoring certain websites, thus preventing access to such websites. e.g., Facebook censoring by the school or workplace networks. You can bypass such restrictions or internet censorship by hiding your IP address using proxies or VPN.
Unlimited video streaming
If you will be traveling, and you’re worried about missing your favorite shows on Netflix US, Disney+, or Hulu because they are not available in the geographic region you’re traveling to, hiding your IP address using proxies or VPN solves the problem. Both VPN and proxies give you unlimited access to your favorite show on geo-restricted streaming services from any part of the world.
How To Hide Your IP Address
Hiding your IP address makes you an anonymous internet user by masking your IP address. Here are mechanisms you can apply to mask or hide your IP address.
1. Use Proxies
Proxies stand between you and the internet. Rather than connecting directly to a website or online service via your ISP, your data traffic is routed through the proxy server, which handles all connection requests to or from your device using its IP address and location. The proxy server masks your IP address from view. Also, it displays its location as the physical location you’re browsing from, thus effectively masking your IP address and location from view.
2. Use Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
Virtual Private Networks are similar to proxies because they handle all connection requests on your behalf. However, VPNs emphasize data encryption; hence it is slower than proxies.
Also, VPNs are not as flexible as proxies because they use a stationary IP address to make connections on your behalf. On the other hand, proxies can change your IP address at set intervals to evade detection using rotating proxy IP addresses.
Conversely, ProxyRack offers a residential VPN service that you can use to hide your IP address.
3. Use The Onion Router (TOR) Network
The Tor network masks your IP address by channeling your data requests through layers of networks; hence, the name ‘Onion Router.’ Using Tor to conceal your IP address slows down your browsing speed heavily because it emphasizes security and data encryption over speed.
Also, the Tor browser shows vulnerabilities that can expose your IP address at the exit node; hence, it is advisable to use proxies with Tor.
4. Connecting to Wi-Fi or other public networks
Connecting to Wi-Fi is not a recommended way of hiding your IP address, especially if it is not a secure or trusted network. This is because snoopers and hackers can intercept your data traffic while you’re connected to a public Wi-Fi network. Therefore, you should use proxies to hide your IP address when connecting to a public Wi-Fi network.
Bottom Line: Best Proxy Service Provider For Hiding IP Address
An ideal proxy service provider should be able to mask your IP address effectively without any leaks. In addition, it should have large pools of Residential and Datacenter proxies to handle unlimited proxies.
ProxyRack is an affordable proxy service provider that meets the above criteria and also offers you proxy services for specific purposes, including copping limited-edition products, streaming, data scraping, online gaming, social media usage, etc.
Find the perfect Proxy Product.
Residential proxies
Datacenter proxies
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