How to Hide Your IP Address: Four Methods, Honestly Compared

There are four real ways to change the address sites see, and they are not interchangeable. What each one actually hides, what it costs, and which one fits your reason for asking.

In short

• A VPN is the right answer for most people: it changes the address for everything on the device and encrypts the traffic on the way out.
• Tor hides more and costs you speed. Use it when the threat is serious, not for streaming.
• A proxy changes the address for one app and usually encrypts nothing. Fine for geography, not for privacy.
• Mobile data changes your address and nothing else. Your operator still sees every site.
• Whatever you pick, verify it. A tunnel that connects while DNS leaks is worse than no tunnel, because it feels safe.

First, what are you actually hiding from

The method depends on who you are hiding from, and these are different problems.

From the sites you visit. They see your address, your approximate area and your provider. Any of the four methods below changes this.

From your internet provider. They see every domain you open, even over HTTPS, because the name is requested before the connection is encrypted. Only a VPN or Tor fixes this. A proxy does not.

From the network you are on. Office wifi, a hotel, a university. Same as above, and often with filtering added on top.

From the state. Here honesty matters: a commercial VPN moves the question, it does not remove it. For that threat model, Tor exists.

Method 1: a VPN

The whole device connects to a server over an encrypted tunnel, and traffic leaves from that server.

Sites see the server’s address instead of yours. Your provider sees an encrypted connection to one machine and stops seeing the list of where you go.

What it costs: a few dollars a month, and some speed, usually not enough to notice on a nearby server.

What it does not do: it does not make you anonymous if you log into accounts with your name on them, and it does not hide anything from the VPN provider itself. That last part is why who runs the service matters, and why a no-logs claim is a claim, not a feature.

Method 2: Tor

Your traffic passes through three relays, run by different volunteers. The first sees who you are but not where you go, the last sees where you go but not who you are, and no single point sees both.

It is free and it is the strongest of the four. It is also slow enough to be annoying for video, and many sites throw captchas at exit nodes or block them.

Use it when the stakes justify the friction.

Method 3: a proxy

A proxy forwards requests for one application, usually a browser. Sites see the proxy’s address.

The catch most people miss: a plain proxy does not encrypt anything. Your provider still sees where you are going, and on a hostile network so does whoever runs it. It also only covers the app you configured, so everything else on the device goes out as usual.

Useful when you want to look like you are somewhere else. Not useful when you want privacy. The full comparison is in proxy or VPN.

Method 4: mobile data

Switching from wifi to your phone’s connection changes your address immediately and for free.

It changes nothing else. Your mobile operator sees every domain, exactly as your home provider did. It is a geography trick, not a privacy measure.

What changes nothing

Incognito mode. It clears local history and cookies when you close the window. Your address is untouched and every site still sees it. This is the single most common misunderstanding in the entire topic.

A different browser. Same connection, same address.

Turning the router off and on. On some providers this gets you a new dynamic address. It is still your provider, still your area, and it will change again on its own.

After you set it up, check it

A tunnel that connects is not the same as a tunnel that works. Three things leak most often:

DNS. If lookups still go to your provider’s resolver, they see every domain you open even though the traffic itself is encrypted elsewhere.

IPv6. If the tunnel carries only IPv4 and your provider hands you IPv6, that half can go around it. Our exits are IPv4-only and the AmneziaWG profile pulls IPv6 into the tunnel and drops it rather than letting it escape.

WebRTC. A browser feature for calls that can reveal a local address from inside the page, with the tunnel up.

Our leak test checks all three at once and stores nothing.

Which one to pick

If you want one answer: a VPN, and verify it afterwards.

Pick Tor instead when the consequences of being identified are severe. Pick a proxy only when the goal is to appear elsewhere and you do not care who is watching. Mobile data is not a privacy method, it is a different cable.

FAQ

Is hiding your IP legal?

In the EU, the US, the UK and most of the world, yes. A handful of countries restrict VPN use locally. What you do through the connection is governed by the same laws as without it.

Will a free VPN do?

A server and bandwidth cost money every month. If you are not paying, something else is: traffic inspection, injected ads, or a free tier so limited it only exists as bait. The honest exception is a free tier funded by the same company’s paying customers.

Does a VPN slow things down?

A little, and distance dominates. On a nearby exit the difference is usually invisible for browsing. Our typical figures are 12 ms to Amsterdam, 28 ms to Bucharest, 34 ms to Helsinki from central Europe.

Can I use a VPN and Tor together?

Yes, and for most people it adds complexity without adding much. It makes sense in narrow cases, such as when connecting to Tor directly is itself blocked or noticed.

Will it work on a network that blocks VPNs?

A plain protocol will not, because deep packet inspection identifies it. That is why we ship VLESS/Reality and AmneziaWG instead of plain WireGuard. More on that in WireGuard vs OpenVPN vs AmneziaWG.

Try it before you pay for it

An hour or 100 MB, no account and no email: free test. If it works on your network, plans start at $1.99 for a week, paid in crypto.