Every time you connect to the Internet, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) assigns an IP address to your computer that makes it possible for websites and applications to keep track of your online activities and also pin point your physical location. Therefore, to protect your Internet privacy, it is often necessary to change your IP address.
Ways to Change IP Address
The following are some of the possible ways to change the IP address of your computer:
1. Using a VPN: Best Way to Change IP Address
Even though there are several methods to change your IP address, using a VPN proxy is by far the best and most secure way. The following are some of the most popular VPN proxies that most Internet users prefer:
- Hide My Ass VPN – Hide My Ass is one of the most popular and trusted VPN services that provide a fast and secure proxy server to allow people to easily change their IP addresses and also obtain an IP address from any country of their choice.
- VyprVPN – VyprVPN offers the world’s fastest VPN services to make it possible for its clients to easily change their real IP using a proxy and support a wide range of operating systems.
Advantages of using VPN over other methods:
- Fast, secure and highly reliable. All your web traffic is encrypted to keep your data safe from hackers and also protect your privacy.
- You can choose from a list of countries and locations to obtain a new IP address. This makes it possible to have your origin from any country of your choice.
- Easily bypass regional blocks to access sites and content that are restricted for your location.
2.Change IP by Restarting the Router
Every time you connect to the Internet your ISP may assign a different IP to your computer called dynamic IP. If your Internet connection uses a dynamic IP you can easily change it just by restarting your network device such as modem/router. All you need to do is just turn off its switch for a few seconds and turn it on again to get a different IP address assigned.
Unlike using a VPN, this method has quite a few drawbacks. Your newly assigned IP will have the same location or country as before and therefore if you’re trying to bypass a country block it would not be possible. Moreover, if your Internet connection uses a static IP address, you will get the same IP assigned no matter how many times you restart your router.
3. Using Free Web Proxy to Change Your IP Address
If you cannot afford a VPN service or restarting the router doesn’t get you a new IP, you can try some of the free browser-based proxy services that help you change your IP address and surf anonymously. The following are some of the websites that offer free proxy services:
Drawbacks of using free web proxies
Even though these services come free of cost they also come with some of the following drawbacks:
- Most of them are slow and websites take a lot of time to load.
- Security and privacy are questionable as most of these free services are unreliable.
- Users have to bare with annoying ads and pop-ups as these sites need to generate revenue to compensate for free service.
- Limited or no choice over the selection of your IP location.
How to Ensure that Your IP is Changed?
To know your current IP address just type what is my IP address on Google and your public IP address should be displayed in the search results. Once you’ve successfully implemented one of the above-mentioned IP changing methods, you can re-check your IP on Google to make sure that you have got a new one.
