9 Reasons Why You Need To Hide Your IP Address

At The VPN Guru, we’ve written quite a few guides on how to hide your public IP address. Your IP address is a sequence of numbers that uniquely identifies you on the internet. The IP address is just a series of digits that discloses your vital personal information like your geographical location and details of the network you are using. As soon as you go online, you expose yourself to various kinds of cyber threats. Even if you use an antivirus and a firewall, these tools are not enough. Everyone who is online needs to protect their identity as well.

What Is an IP Address?

An IP (Internet Protocol) address works as an identification number for an active internet connection. Your IP address is assigned to you by your internet service provider once you get an internet connection. The IP address represents your physical location making you vulnerable to cybercrimes. When we talk about hiding your IP address, we strictly mean your public (external) IP and not your device’s private (internal) IP address.

9 Reasons Why You Need To Hide Your IP Address

Hiding your IP or maintaining anonymity while using the internet has become a necessity. The following ten reasons will help you consider masking the IP address.

1. To trespass online censorship

Some countries have digital borders that keep their citizens from accessing the internet or a particular website. For instance, China doesn’t let its users access several popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

If you need to access certain content on the internet that is censored in your country, you’ll need to go online with the IP of another country.

Hiding your device’s IP address is the only solution to fix this censorship issue.

2. To get cheap tickets and hotel prices

When you plan to travel internationally, your flight prices will vary, based on the country from where you’re booking the tickets. For example, if you’re traveling from the US to Mexico, tickets will be costlier from the US but cheaper from Mexico.

If you stay in the US, the only way you can get cheaper tickets is by hiding your IP. If you use a VPN and connect to a Mexican server, the travel website will see that the connection is coming from Mexico and thus display cheaper airfares.

And that’s not all. When you’re on a travel website, you might notice that the airfares start to surge when you make regular searches. This is done by the website to create a sense of urgency so you are compelled to book the tickets quickly.

To make sure this doesn’t happen, hide your IP when you browse the travel website. Also, make sure you delete your cookies so that the website doesn’t recognize you.

3. Access to streaming services like Netflix, Wherever You Are

Streaming services like YouTube and Netflix put restrictions on their content based on your location, which means, some or all of their content may not be visible in a specific country.

Streaming services can identify your location using your IP address, so if you want to ‘Netflix and chill’ you should mask your device’s IP Address.

Websites such as Netflix and Hulu don’t just block access from specific countries, but they also block VPN access. So if you want to access them, you’ll need a VPN that’s able to bypass the VPN radar of these services.

4. Prohibit Search Engines from Logging Your Searches

When you search online, search engines log all your requests and monitor your website visits. Later, they use all this information to display targeted ads, and this is all possible only because your unique IP address is visible to these search engines.

While there are some search engines that are secure and don’t log your searches, major giants such as Google are notorious for tracking all user activity. By masking your device’s IP address, you can prohibit search engines from logging all your online activities.

5. To securely download files

Masking your system’s IP address will also hide all your downloads and uploads. If you are an ardent torrent downloader, masking the IP is a must as it provides an additional layer of security.

6. To access the internet at work and school

The most disappointing fact about the free internet is that most of the websites and web pages remain blocked. For example, the internet accessibility at your school, college, and office allow you to browse the internet, but it also has many restrictions as you cannot download from many websites or you cannot log into a social site and many other websites.

You can perform Google searches, browse through different article sites and blogs but video streaming, gaming, and social media websites are generally blocked. Bypassing all such network restrictions school or office will require you to change your IP address.

7. To protect your personal information

If you want to stay anonymous on the internet and don’t want the website owners to know your real location, the best thing you can do is hide your IP address.

What you do online is nobody’s business. If you don’t like websites following you around and tracking your activities, you should keep deleting your browser cookies on time. Also, you must hide your IP so the apps you use or websites you visit aren’t able to know your real location.

8. To prevent your ISP from monitoring all your activities.

Your ISP can track all your online activities through your IP and can later sell your data traffic to advertisers or marketing firms.

Any moment you connect to the internet through your computer or mobile devices, you are allowing your ISP to monitor all your activity. By all means, to keep your internet activities discrete or to yourself, you should start to consider privatizing your IP address.

9. To enjoy complete internet freedom

One of the core objectives of masking the IP address is to experience complete freedom while using the internet. You can only experience complete anonymity and freedom when your IP address is hidden.

Hiding your IP will eventually safeguard your identity and confidential data online.

How to hide your device’s IP Address?

Getting a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can help you maintain your anonymity and stay protected while being online. Since a VPN will reroute your traffic through its servers, the websites and apps you visit will see the server address and not your own. This way, you can enjoy complete freedom and anonymity while hiding behind another IP. Finally, take a look at the best VPNs you can use to mask your IP address online as well.