How to Hide or Change Your IP Address

Whether you want more privacy while browsing or you're troubleshooting a connection issue, there are several legitimate ways to change or mask the IP address a website sees.

Restart your router

For most home internet connections, your IP address isn't permanent — it's "dynamic," meaning your provider can reassign it. Unplugging your router for about a minute and reconnecting is often enough to get a new IP address, though some providers hold onto the same address for days or weeks regardless.

Use a VPN

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) routes your internet traffic through a separate server before it reaches its destination. Websites see the VPN server's IP address instead of yours. This is the most common and reliable method — it also encrypts your traffic, which restarting a router doesn't do.

Use a proxy server

A proxy works similarly to a VPN by sitting between you and the sites you visit, masking your IP. Proxies are generally faster but don't encrypt your traffic the way a VPN does, so they offer less overall privacy.

Switch networks

Moving from Wi-Fi to mobile data (or vice versa) puts you on a completely different network with its own IP address. This is the simplest option if you just need a quick, temporary change.

Use Tor

The Tor Browser routes your traffic through multiple volunteer-run servers, making it very difficult to trace back to your original IP. It's slower than a VPN but is built specifically around anonymity.