Five methods actually work: a VPN, the Tor Browser, a proxy, your own VPS over an SSH tunnel, or switching to a different network. All of them change the address a site sees. They differ on encryption, speed, cost and who you end up trusting - a VPN fits most everyday use, Tor is for when anonymity has to hold.
People come to this for ordinary reasons: browsing without a provider building a profile, reaching something restricted to another country, cutting down on address-based tracking, or keeping strangers in a game lobby from seeing where the connection comes from. The hard part is not finding a method. It is that the five common ones mean five different things by "hiding".
This guide takes each one in turn - what it replaces, who you end up trusting instead, what it leaves exposed - and then the step most articles skip: how to check afterwards that it did anything at all.
1. VPN (Virtual Private Network)
A VPN sends all your traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a server the provider runs, and the site at the other end sees that server's address instead of yours. Your own provider can see that you are connected to a VPN and how much data moved, but not which pages you opened inside the tunnel.
The trade is who does the seeing. Your browsing has moved out of your ISP's view and into the VPN company's, so the whole thing rests on how that company logs, how it is funded, and whether anybody independent has ever checked either claim.
Best for: everyday privacy, public Wi-Fi, region-restricted content. Downside: you are trusting the provider instead of your ISP, and a modest speed cost is normal.
2. Tor Browser
Tor sends your traffic through three independently operated relays rather than one server, wrapped in layers of encryption, so no single relay knows both who you are and what you are reaching (source: The Tor Project). That is the structural difference from a VPN: there is no company in the middle that could log the whole path, because no single point can see it.
Best for: anonymity that has to hold - journalism, activism, living under surveillance. Downside: visibly slower because of the extra hops, and a fair number of sites block traffic arriving from known exit relays.
More hops generally buys stronger anonymity and costs speed. Direct is the fastest and the most exposed; Tor is the slowest and the hardest to follow.
3. Proxy Server
A proxy sits between you and the site, forwards the request and presents its own address instead of yours. The concept resembles a VPN, but with one large difference: a proxy usually does not encrypt anything, and it usually applies to one browser or one app rather than the whole device. Web proxies and SOCKS proxies are the two types you will meet.
Sites also detect them more often than people expect, because commercial proxy ranges are catalogued - the Proxy Check tool reads the same signals a site would.
Best for: a quick, low-stakes address change for one browser or one task, often free. Downside: no encryption, so it hides your address from the site without protecting the traffic on the way. Treat it as masking, not privacy.
4. SSH Tunnel or a Personal VPS
Rent a small cloud server and tunnel your traffic through it over SSH, and it behaves much like a VPN - traffic leaves from the server's address - except the server is yours. Nobody else's logging policy is involved, and nobody else is sharing that address.
Which is also the catch. A VPN's shared address is part of what protects you, because the traffic of hundreds of people is mixed together on it. A VPS address used by one person is a clean, consistent identifier, and the hosting company still knows who rented it.
Best for: technically comfortable people who would rather trust their own setup than a VPN company's promises. Downside: setup knowledge, a monthly bill, an address that is uniquely yours, and a hosting provider you are now trusting instead.
5. Switch Networks (Mobile Data or Public Wi-Fi)
Connecting through a different network - phone data instead of home Wi-Fi, or a cafe's connection - genuinely gives you a different public address, because a different provider is now assigning it. It is the only method on this list that needs nothing installed and costs nothing.
It also changes the reading a lookup returns, often by a long way, since a mobile operator's addresses tend to resolve to a regional hub rather than the street you are on - what is my IP location covers how loose that estimate gets.
Best for: a one-off task where you just need a different address. Downside: it changes your address rather than hiding you. The new network sees and can log everything you do on it, which on a public connection is the whole problem.
How Do the Five Methods Compare, Side by Side?
| Method | Encrypted | Speed | Typical cost | Setup effort | Who you have to trust |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VPN | Yes | Fast | Free or subscription | Low | The VPN company, entirely |
| Tor | Yes, in layers | Slow | Free | Low | No single operator, by design |
| Proxy | Usually not | Fast | Free or paid | Low | The proxy operator, and the network in between |
| SSH tunnel or VPS | Yes | Fast | Monthly hosting | High | Your hosting company |
| Switch networks | No | Varies | Free | None | Whoever runs that network |
The last column is the one worth reading twice. None of these methods removes the question of who can see your traffic - each one moves it to somebody else.
How Do You Check It Actually Worked?
Assume nothing, because every one of these methods fails quietly. Read your address before you connect, on MyIPShow, and write it down. Connect, reload, and read it again. A different address and a different provider name means the traffic is going where you think it is; the same address means the tunnel is not carrying your browser, whatever the app is reporting.
Three failures are worth knowing by name. A VPN can drop while the client still shows connected, which puts you back on your own address mid-session unless a kill switch catches it. DNS queries can travel outside the tunnel even when the traffic inside it is fine, so the sites you visit stay visible to your provider. And a browser can reveal a local or real address through WebRTC, the mechanism behind in-browser calls - browsers have tightened this considerably in recent years, but it still catches particular setups, which is exactly why you check instead of assuming.
The VPN Checker reads what your connection is presenting right now, the IP Lookup tool does the same for any address you paste in, and how to check if your VPN is actually working walks through the leaks a single reading can miss.
What Does Hiding Your IP Not Do?
It removes one identifier out of many. Logging into an account tells a site exactly who you are no matter which address the request arrived from, and cookies, browser fingerprinting and anything you have posted yourself all survive the change. Hiding the address is a layer, not a disguise.
It is worth being clear about which address is even involved. This is about the
public address your connection presents to the internet - the private one inside your
home, the 192.168. number on your laptop, never leaves your router and
matters to nobody outside it, as
IP address explained: public, private and why it matters
sets out.
And it is worth knowing how little the address gave away in the first place. A lookup returns a city-level guess and a provider name, not a household, which is the point of can someone find your home address from your IP address. Hiding it is a reasonable privacy habit, not protection against a threat that mostly does not exist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is hiding my IP address illegal?
No. Using a VPN, Tor or a proxy is legal in most countries and is an ordinary privacy practice. A small number of countries restrict or ban VPN use, so it is worth checking local law if you are travelling somewhere with strict internet rules. And whatever you do while your address is hidden is judged exactly as it would be otherwise.
Will a VPN slow down my internet a lot?
A reputable VPN normally costs a modest amount of speed for browsing and streaming, because your traffic takes one extra hop through the VPN server. A server close to where you actually are costs less than a distant one, and the difference is more noticeable on a slow line than on a fast one.
Can I use a VPN and Tor together?
Yes, and it is a known setup either way round, with different tradeoffs for who sees what. For most people it adds complexity without a matching gain, so it belongs to specific threat models rather than to everyday privacy.
Is a free VPN safe to use?
It varies enormously. Servers cost money to run, so a free service is funding itself somehow, and some have funded themselves by logging and selling the very traffic you came to protect. Read the privacy policy, look for an independent audit, and treat a free browser extension as address masking rather than privacy.
Does hiding my IP make me completely anonymous online?
No. The address is one identifier among many. Account logins, cookies, browser fingerprinting and anything you post yourself identify you regardless of which address the traffic arrived from. Treat it as one layer that removes one signal.
Does incognito or private browsing mode hide my IP address?
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding on the subject. Private browsing only stops your own browser keeping history, cookies and form data on the device afterwards. Your address is untouched, so every site you open, and your provider, sees precisely what they would see in a normal window.
Final Words
There is no best method here, only a right one for what you are actually trying to avoid. A VPN covers everyday privacy with the least friction and the most trust placed in one company. Tor is worth its slowness when anonymity genuinely has to hold. A proxy or a different network is fine for a one-off. Whichever you pick, the step that decides whether any of it worked takes ten seconds: read your address, connect, read it again. You can do both readings on the MyIPShow homepage.