Hide or Change IP Address for FREE

While we do offer a fee-based service for protecting/relocating your IP, there may be situations where a non-paid solution will work just fine. On this page, we present an outline of several method by which you can hide and/or change your IP address for free. If you know of any others, please let us know so we can add them to this list.

If you're using cable or DSL, and all you need to do is get a new IP address (and never need to use your current IP again), then you can probably just prompt your ISP (Internet service provider) to issue a new one to you. It's your ISP that gave you your current IP address, and getting them to generate a replacement is usually not very complicated. Check out our instructions for Windows XP and Vista/7.

If you just want to visit a website without leaving tracks, and your security concerns are not extremely serious, web proxies may do the job. A web proxy is simply a website that visits another website for you, and then relays the requested html page back to you. This way, the target website only sees the IP address of the web proxy. These free proxies should not be relied on for high security because they can very easily leak your real IP, and will often not work with video/audio or other complex protocols. However, they are good for hiding your IP address on standard webpages (just html and images). Try out an example at KProxy or ProxyLord.

You can simulate a web proxy using various web translation tools (one example is Babelfish). Just scroll down to "translate a web page", and enter the URL you want to visit. For the translation languages, choose something like "Korean -> English" (the first can be any language, as long as it's something other than what the web page actually is). Click "Translate" and you'll get the page relayed to you through the web translator.

*However, be aware that this will only fool the most simple of IP detectors, as your real IP address will still be displayed in other areas of the HTTP header that is sent to the target webpage.

Using a computer at your local public library will hide your home IP address, as will taking your laptop to a free Internet cafe. Is this stuff too obvious? If not, then we'll also mention that using a computer at school or work will change your IP to something other than your home address too. Or if you have some trusting and generous neighbors, logging on to their WiFi connection (and disabling yours) will also do the job.

Http proxies are not as easily broken as web proxies, and may work more reliably with complex websites. However, they are still subject to a variety of security risks that you should be aware of (so please read this first). Regardless, many people use anonymous proxies, apparently finding that the ability to change their IP address for free is worth the risk. If you choose to give it a try, visit our tutorials for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

Perhaps the most popular anonymous surfing program on the Internet, Tor is basically a network of http proxies that includes software for encrypting your connecting to those proxies. An excellent degree of anonymity can be gained if used correctly (read all their instructions), and this would probably be our top recommendation if all you want to do is hide your IP address. The only functionality that appears to be lacking is the ability to choose where your IP address will be located. Another minor drawback is that the Tor network itself is easily detected (but it will not reveal who you are if configured properly).

Okay, this is only free if you already have a dialup account -- but since we mentioned the DOS commands for cable/DSL, it's only fair to include a dialup mention. So obviously: if you have a dialup ISP, simply disconnecting and redialing (or better yet, redialing through another access number) will almost always change your IP.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) can be used to securely surf the Internet via a relay with an encrypted connection. This typically involves a fee for use, but there "seem" to be a few services that are offering free VPN surfing. How they do it, we don't know, but our guess is that they may try to get you to upgrade to a "premium" service at some point.

We did a quick web search for "free VPN", and got some matches. However, we have not tested any of these services, so use them AT YOUR OWN RISK. The first page results included: AlonWeb, ShareVPN, and VPN Labs. Again, we know nothing about these sites other than the fact that they are SEO'd for "free VPN". Good luck!

Have any ideas to add to this list?

Please let us know, so we can keep this page as complete and useful as possible!