What is an IP address and how to change the IP address? An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a numerical way to identify your computer on the Internet. Web sites can know much information by your IP address. For example, from your IP address, we can know your country.
How to Change IP Address
People change the IP address to avoid online bans and protect online privacy. How to change the IP address? Before trying any other methods to change your IP address, try turning off your Cable/DSL modem for five minutes. In many cases, this will change your IP address.
But that method can only change your IP address slightly within a small range. How to change the IP address to another country? Here are some methods to change the IP address completely to another one.
My IP Hide 
There are many kinds of proxy software that can help you to change IP. Among them, we recommend My IP Hide which supports both Windows and Mac. It uses enhanced proxy technology with encrypted connections. It’s much faster than VPN and SSH proxy. With My IP Hide, you can completely change IP addresses while watch youtube smoothly.
Using it is easy. Just keep My IP Hide (MIH) running when you surf the Internet. If you exit or disable MIH, you will use direct connections. For Opera, you need to set its proxy option to direct connections manually.
Cons: My IP Hide only support browsers. If you want all your programs to go through the encrypted connection, you will need a VPN account.
Http Proxy
All the browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari, and others) support the proxy option. When you set a proxy in the browser, the proxy will fetch the web pages for your browser. The websites regard the IP of proxy as your IP so it cannot trace your real IP. Thus the proxy helps you to change the IP address.
How to use HTTP proxy in the browser? You can manually set the proxy option. We recommend using Elite Proxy Switcher to configure the proxy for your browser. The free edition is enough for you.
Where to get HTTP proxies? You can get some free proxies from our free proxy list. You can also buy proxies from us. We check and update our proxy lists every hour.
Cons: The public HTTP proxies are unstable because they die fast. Http proxies are suitable for the users who need a lot of IP addresses but use each IP address for only several hours.
VPN
VPN is short for Virtual Private Network. It uses strong encryption to ensure that only authorized users can access the network and that the data cannot be intercepted. It’s usually used to securely connect the branch offices of an organization to its headquarters network through the public Internet. Now many VPN vendors open this service to the public. You can use it to change IP. We recommend the VPN service of HideMyAss. You can choose many IP addresses from it.
Cons: There are two problems with the VPN. (1) If you use a VPN, all the programs will use the VPN connection. You can not choose which programs use a VPN and which uses a direct connection. (2) Because of the strong encryption, VPN is much slower than the direct connection. Here is a detailed comparison between the Hide My Ass VPN and My IP Hide.
Web Proxy
The web proxy is the easiest way to change IP. Web proxy is a website with an URL bar. Just input the URL of a blocked site into that bar and click the “Surf” button. Web proxy will fetch the web page for you showing on its own site.
The problem is that web proxy doesn’t support all the sites. It uses a plugin to support youtube. But it can’t support Hulu or Pinterest. Another problem is the security issue. If you use a web proxy to visit secure sites (ex. bank or PayPal), your information may be intercepted.
Socks Proxy
Socks proxy is similar to HTTP proxy. The difference is that socks support all the Internet protocols (such as HTTP, FTP, and VoIP) while HTTP proxy only supports HTTP. So it supports more programs besides the browser. It supports Skype, Thunderbird, FileZilla, mIRC, and any program/game that has a socks proxy option.
Same as an HTTP proxy, socks proxy is unstable. You can use Socks Proxy Checker to test the socks proxies before using them. The free edition is enough for you to change IP. You can get some free socks proxy here. You can also buy socks proxy from us.
SSH Proxy
SSH proxy is encrypted socks proxy. The SSH (Secure Shell) protocol is usually used to control a Linux server via a secure channel. Some program (Putty or MyEnTunnel) can convert SSH connection into encrypted socks proxy service. The configuration is a bit complicated for non-technical personnel.
With SSH proxy you can completely change IP. The problem is that the speed of the SSH proxy is slow because of the strong encryption. There are a few SSH proxy vendors. But you can find some free SSH proxy on Google.