How to Hide Your IP Address: 5 Real Methods

Why hide your IP at all?

Before diving into methods, a quick reality check on why you might want this:

• Public Wi-Fi privacy: Coffee shops, airports, hotels — anyone on the same network can sometimes see your traffic.
• Region-locked content: Streaming services restrict shows by country.
• Avoiding price discrimination: Some retailers show different prices by ZIP code.
• Bypassing censorship: Accessing blocked sites in restrictive countries.
• Limiting tracking: Reducing how easily advertisers correlate your activity across sites.
• Hiding browsing from ISP: Especially in the US, where ISPs can legally sell anonymized browsing data.

What hiding your IP doesn't do: prevent sites you log into from knowing who you are, protect you from malware, or make you anonymous if you also use Facebook, Google, or any account. See our honest guide to what your IP reveals for more.

Method 1: Use a VPN (best for most people)

How it works: A VPN (Virtual Private Network) routes your traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a server somewhere else. Websites see the VPN server's IP, not yours.

Pros

• Easy to use — install an app, click connect
• Fast enough for streaming and gaming
• Works on every device (phone, computer, router, TV)
• Hides your IP from websites AND your ISP
• Lets you choose which country to appear from

Cons

• Costs money (typically $3–5/month for a quality service)
• Free VPNs are mostly traps that sell your data
• The VPN provider sees everything — trust matters
• Slightly slower than no VPN

Effectiveness rating: Excellent

For 95% of people who want to hide their IP, a VPN is the right answer. The remaining 5% have specific needs (extreme privacy, hostile networks) where Tor is better.

Our recommended VPNs

From our detailed VPN guide:

• NordVPN — best overall, audited no-logs policy, large server network. Check pricing →
• Surfshark — best value, unlimited device connections, same parent company as NordVPN. Check pricing →

For a genuinely free option, Proton VPN Free is the only one we'd recommend — Swiss-based, no logs, unlimited data, no affiliate relationship.

Affiliate disclosure: The NordVPN and Surfshark links above are affiliate links — we earn a commission if you sign up. The Proton VPN Free mention is unaffiliated — we recommend it because it's the best free option. See our About page for details.

How to use a VPN to hide your IP

1. Sign up for a reputable VPN service.
2. Download and install the app on your device.
3. Open the app and click "Connect" (it usually picks the fastest server automatically).
4. To verify it's working, visit scanmyipaddress.com — you should see a different IP and likely a different location.

Method 2: Use Tor (strongest anonymity)

How it works: The Tor network routes your traffic through three different volunteer-operated relays before reaching the destination. Each relay only knows the previous and next hop, making it very hard to trace.

Pros

• Completely free
• Strongest anonymity available to consumers
• No single party (like a VPN provider) sees everything
• Works in many censored countries (with bridges)
• Open source and run by a nonprofit

Cons

• Slow — expect 1/4 to 1/10 the speed of a direct connection
• Many websites block or rate-limit Tor users
• Doesn't work well for streaming video
• Can flag you as "suspicious" to some services

Effectiveness rating: Maximum (but slow)

For activists, journalists, whistleblowers, or anyone with serious threat models, Tor is the right choice. For watching Netflix, it's massive overkill.

How to use Tor

1. Download the Tor Browser from torproject.org (the only official source).
2. Install and launch it.
3. Click "Connect" when prompted.
4. Browse normally — the browser handles routing through Tor automatically.

Important: Only the Tor Browser routes traffic through Tor. Your other apps still use your normal connection unless you specifically configure them otherwise.

Method 3: Use a proxy server

How it works: A proxy server sits between you and the internet, forwarding requests. Websites see the proxy's IP instead of yours.

Pros

• Often cheaper than VPNs (some are free)
• Faster than Tor
• Can be set up per-browser instead of system-wide

Cons

• No encryption — ISP can still see what you're doing
• Free proxies are often run by scammers or honeypots
• Many are slow and unreliable
• Doesn't protect non-browser traffic (mobile apps, games)
• Easy to detect and block

Effectiveness rating: Mediocre

Proxies are useful for specific use cases like web scraping or geo-spoofing for a single browser tab. For general IP hiding, a VPN is almost always better — and not much more expensive.

When proxies make sense

• Developers needing different IPs for testing
• Web scraping (rotating residential proxies)
• Bypassing simple country blocks on a single site

Method 4: Use mobile data instead of Wi-Fi

How it works: Switch from your home Wi-Fi to your phone's cellular data. You now appear to be on your mobile carrier's network with a different IP.

Pros

• Free (within your data plan)
• Instant — just toggle Wi-Fi off
• Uses Carrier-Grade NAT, so your IP is shared with many others

Cons

• Doesn't hide your IP — just gives you a different one
• Your mobile carrier still knows it's you
• Mobile IPs can still be geo-located
• Doesn't help with regional content (you're still in your home country)
• Uses your data plan

Effectiveness rating: Limited

Mobile data is useful in two specific scenarios:

1. Your home IP got blocked somewhere (mobile gives you a different IP)
2. You want some basic separation from your home connection's activity

It's not real IP hiding — it's just IP switching.

Method 5: Use public Wi-Fi

How it works: Connect to a coffee shop, library, or other public network. You get the public network's IP.

Pros

• Free
• Your IP isn't tied to your name (the coffee shop doesn't know who you are)

Cons

• Public Wi-Fi is a security risk — others on the network can sometimes see your traffic
• Requires being physically present
• Many sites flag public network IPs as suspicious
• Cameras and other devices may still track who's using the network

Effectiveness rating: Poor

Public Wi-Fi creates more security risks than it solves. If you're going to use public Wi-Fi anyway, use a VPN on top of it — you get the IP change AND the encryption.

Method comparison

The recommendation for most people: A paid VPN. It costs about the same as a single coffee per month, works on every device, is genuinely easy to use, and handles every IP-hiding scenario except extreme privacy needs (where Tor wins). See our full VPN guide for specific recommendations.

How to verify your IP is actually hidden

After setting up any of the above methods, always verify it's actually working. Don't trust the app's UI — check the real result:

1. First, note your real IP (turn off the VPN/proxy/Tor and visit scanmyipaddress.com).
2. Turn on your chosen privacy method.
3. Visit scanmyipaddress.com again.
4. The IP shown should be different. Location should match the new server location.

Common verification gotchas:

• DNS leaks: Even with a VPN, your DNS queries might bypass the tunnel, revealing your real ISP. Look for "DNS leak test" tools for a thorough check.
• WebRTC leaks: Some browsers expose your real IP through WebRTC, even with a VPN active.
• IPv6 leaks: Some older VPNs only tunnel IPv4 traffic, leaving IPv6 connections exposed.