How to hide or change your IP
Every method that works, and the two columns most guides leave out.
First, decide which thing you want
"Hide my IP" covers two different goals, and the methods that serve them differ.
- Change it. You want a different address on the same connection, usually because the current one has been shared, blocked, or attacked.
- Hide it. You want websites to see somebody else's address instead of yours.
The first is free and takes patience. The second involves routing your traffic through somebody else, which always means choosing who to trust.
Most pages answering this question earn a commission on the VPN they recommend. We have nothing to sell and no affiliate links anywhere on this site, which is why the table below has a column for what each option fails to do.
Changing it, without hiding it
Turn the router off for a few hours
The standard advice, and it works often enough to try first. You are waiting for the DHCP lease to lapse so the provider hands out a different address. A one-minute reboot usually renews the same one, because the lease is still valid. Hours are better than minutes, and overnight is better still. See why your IP changes for the mechanism.
Ask your provider
Underrated. Support can often reassign an address, especially if you explain that the current one is being attacked or has been blocked by a service you need. It costs nothing and takes one phone call.
Change the equipment
A different router or modem frequently draws a different lease, since the request looks like it came from new hardware.
Anything inside your own network. Restarting a laptop, releasing and renewing its address, or turning off Wi-Fi on one device all operate on your private address. Your public address belongs to the connection, not to any device on it.
Hiding it: the four real options
A VPN
What it does: encrypts your traffic to a server run by the VPN company, which then makes requests on your behalf. Websites see the server's address. Your provider sees encrypted traffic to one destination and cannot see which sites you visited.
What it does not do: make you anonymous. Cookies still identify you, your fingerprint is unchanged, and any account you log into knows exactly who you are. It also does not remove trust from the equation, it relocates it: the VPN company can now see what your provider used to. A free VPN in particular has to make money somehow, and the traffic is the product available to it.
Reasonable uses: untrusted networks, keeping your provider out of your browsing, appearing to be somewhere else, and getting away from an address that is being attacked.
Tor
What it does: routes through three volunteer-run relays, each of which knows only its neighbors. No single relay knows both who you are and what you asked for. This is a genuinely stronger property than a VPN, where one company knows both.
The costs: it is slow, some sites block it outright, and the exit relay can see unencrypted traffic. Appropriate when the stakes are real. Overkill for wanting fewer targeted ads.
A proxy
What it does: forwards requests for whatever is configured to use it, which is often a single browser rather than the whole machine. Frequently sold as equivalent to a VPN. Usually it lacks the encryption, so your provider still sees where you went.
Mobile data
What it does: gives you a completely different address, shared with a great many other subscribers on the same carrier. Crude, free if you have the data, and effective for the narrow case of not wanting one particular service to see your home connection.
What people try that does not work
| Method | What it actually does |
|---|---|
| Incognito or private browsing | Affects local history and cookies. The network sees exactly the same address |
| Clearing cookies | Helps against cookie tracking. Does nothing to your address |
| Changing your device's IP in settings | Changes the private address on your own network only |
| Turning airplane mode on and off | Often does change a mobile address. Does nothing on home Wi-Fi |
| A browser extension called an "IP hider" | Usually a proxy for that browser at best, and sometimes just adware |
| Restarting your computer | Nothing at all, unless it also power-cycled your router |
Checking that it worked
Load our front page before and after. Two specific things to look at rather than glancing at one number.
- Both rows, not just IPv4. A common VPN failure is carrying IPv4 through the tunnel while IPv6 goes around it, which leaks your real address to any site that prefers IPv6. If the IPv6 row shows an address that looks like your provider's while IPv4 shows the VPN, that is the leak. An empty IPv6 row usually means the VPN is blocking it deliberately, which is the correct behavior.
- The geolocation block. If the address changed but the city still looks like yours, you may be on a server near you, which is fine, or the geolocation database may simply be out of date for that address.
We test each protocol with a separate request specifically so this comparison is possible. A single check would only tell you which protocol your browser happened to prefer.
Is any of this legal?
Using a VPN, Tor or a proxy is lawful in most countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. A handful of countries restrict or ban them, and that list changes, so it is worth checking if you are travelling.
What does not change is that hiding an address does not make an act lawful. Terms of service can still be breached, and geographic restrictions on streaming are a contract question rather than a technical one.