The essential points from this guide -- each one is explained in detail below.
A proxy or VPN hides your IP address by replacing it with a different one before your traffic reaches a website.
Proxies mask your IP for one app or browser; VPNs hide it across your entire device at once.
Tor gives the strongest anonymity through triple-hop onion routing, but it is the slowest option.
Phones hide their IP the same way as desktops, through a proxy app, a VPN app, or manual network settings.
Free methods exist, but most trade your privacy for cost through data logging, bandwidth caps, or shared IPs that are already blocked.
Your IP address reveals your approximate location, your internet service provider, and sometimes your employer or school network. Every website you visit logs this address during a normal browsing session, and several parties can see it without your knowledge.
People hide their IP address for a few practical reasons. Privacy tops the list: an IP address is a persistent identifier that links your activity across different websites and browsing sessions, the same way a name tag links you across a room full of strangers. Bypassing geo-restrictions is another common reason, since streaming platforms and regional pricing pages often serve different content based on the visitor's location. Some people want to stop targeted ads that follow them from site to site after a single search. Others need to get around an IP ban after being blocked from a forum, game server, or online marketplace.
Some searches for this topic use the word "block" instead of "hide," such as how to block an IP address or how to block my IP address. In a privacy context, this usually means the same goal: stop apps and websites from ever seeing your real address, rather than blocking incoming traffic on a router. A proxy, VPN, or Tor connection accomplishes this by placing a different IP address between your device and the internet, which blocks your real one from view before it ever reaches the destination site.
Hiding your IP address does not make you fully anonymous online. Cookies, browser fingerprinting, and account logins can still identify you even after your real IP is masked. What it does is remove the most common tracking signal and close the door on IP-based blocking, geo-restriction, and location-based ad targeting.
Searches also use the words "disguise" and "scramble" for this same goal, as in how to disguise IP or how to scramble your IP. Both describe the identical outcome as hiding or masking: your original address stops reaching the destination site, and a different one takes its place. The method you pick, whether an IP scrambler tool, a proxy, a VPN, or Tor, decides how reliable and how anonymous that replacement address turns out to be.
A short version of the same question, simply "hide IP," usually points to the same set of tools. There is no separate technique hiding behind the shorter phrase. The five methods in this guide, proxy, VPN, Tor, public WiFi, and mobile data, cover every practical way to hide an IP address on a phone or a desktop computer.
A proxy server hides your IP address by routing your traffic through its own IP address before that traffic reaches the destination website. The website sees the proxy's IP, not yours. This works at the application level, so you can mask your IP in one browser or app while your other traffic keeps using your real connection.
Three types of proxies mask your IP address, and each does it a different way.
Residential proxies assign you an IP address tied to a real ISP subscriber, so masked traffic looks identical to an ordinary home internet connection. Websites rarely flag residential IPs as suspicious, which makes this the best way to mask your IP address without triggering blocks or CAPTCHAs.
Datacenter proxies assign you an IP from a hosting provider's server range instead of a home ISP. They run faster and cost less than residential proxies, but some websites can identify datacenter IP ranges and flag them, which makes this option better suited to speed over stealth.
SOCKS5 proxies mask your IP at the level of a single app or process rather than your whole device. They carry any type of traffic, not just web browsing, which makes them a common choice for masking the IP address used by one specific tool, such as a torrent client or a game.
To hide your IP address with a proxy through KnoxProxy, follow four steps. First, sign up and choose a proxy type: residential IPs give the highest trust score, while datacenter IPs cost less for high-volume, lower-stealth tasks. Second, copy your proxy credentials (host, port, username, password) from the dashboard. Third, enter those credentials into your browser's network settings or your app's proxy field. Fourth, confirm the change by visiting an IP checker, where the address shown should be the proxy's IP, not your real one.
HTTP and HTTPS proxies handle regular web browsing traffic and are the simplest to configure in a browser. SOCKS5 sits a level below that, moving any kind of traffic without inspecting or rewriting it, which is why apps that are not web browsers, such as torrent clients or game launchers, tend to require SOCKS5 specifically rather than an HTTP proxy.
This process answers the common "my ip hide proxy" search directly: a proxy is the tool, and the four steps above are the setup. It also covers "mask ip addresses" and "how to mask my ip address" searches, since masking your IP with a proxy takes only these steps, whether you need one masked address or many rotating ones for separate accounts.
A single proxy connection can mask your IP address for one specific need at a time. If a website blocks your current IP, you switch to a new one from your proxy pool rather than reconfiguring anything else on your device. If you run several accounts on the same platform, each account can run through its own proxy IP, so none of them share an address that would tie them together. This selective control over exactly which traffic gets a new IP is the main reason proxies remain the standard tool for masking an IP address in business and scraping contexts, rather than a full VPN.
| Proxy Type | Best For | Anonymity Level | KnoxProxy Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | Avoiding blocks and CAPTCHAs | Highest | $2.10/GB |
| Datacenter | Speed and high-volume tasks | Moderate | $0.60/GB |
| SOCKS5 | Masking a single app | Depends on IP type used | Varies by IP type |
A VPN routes all of a device's internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a remote server, and every app and browser on that device then shows the VPN server's IP address instead of the real one. Unlike a proxy, a VPN protects an entire device at once, not just one browser or app.
Setting up a VPN to hide your IP address takes three steps. Install the VPN app on your device, choose a server location from the app's list, and tap connect. The app changes your IP address within seconds, and most apps display a confirmation screen showing your new location.
A VPN is the better choice for casual browsing and public WiFi security. Turning it on hides your IP address across every app automatically, and the encryption stops anyone on a shared WiFi network, such as a coffee shop or airport, from reading your traffic.
A proxy is the better choice for web scraping, multi-accounting, and speed-sensitive tasks. VPNs typically assign one shared IP per server location, which does not work well for tasks that need many different IP addresses at once, or that need each account to look like a separate real user. Proxies also let you choose a specific city or network type, while most VPN apps limit you to a country or a short server list.
For a full breakdown of when each tool fits your task best, see proxy vs VPN.
Most VPN apps encrypt traffic with the same protocols banks and businesses use for secure connections, so the tunnel between your device and the VPN server stays private even on an untrusted network. That encryption is the main feature a plain proxy does not include by default, since a standard proxy hides your IP address without necessarily encrypting the traffic in between. For most everyday privacy needs, that difference matters more than raw speed.
Most VPN apps let you switch between a couple of underlying protocols, and the choice affects both speed and reliability. WireGuard tends to reconnect faster after a dropped connection and generally performs better on mobile data. OpenVPN is older and slightly slower but has a longer track record and wider compatibility with older routers and firewalls. Either protocol hides your IP address the same way; the choice mostly affects how the connection feels day to day.
The Tor Browser hides your IP address by bouncing your traffic through three volunteer-run relays before it reaches the destination website, a method known as onion routing. Each relay only knows the IP address of the relay before it and the relay after it, so no single relay knows both who you are and which site you are visiting.
Tor gives the strongest anonymity of the three methods covered here, since your real IP address is never exposed to the same party as your destination site. This is why journalists, researchers, and anyone whose safety depends on staying untracked often choose Tor over a proxy or VPN.
The trade-offs are real, and worth knowing before you rely on Tor for daily use. Triple-hop routing adds noticeable delay, so pages load far slower than through a proxy or VPN connection. Many major websites and services block Tor exit nodes outright, showing a CAPTCHA wall or refusing the connection entirely. Streaming video and large-scale web scraping are not practical over Tor, since both need the steady speed and IP stability that onion routing cannot reliably provide.
Use Tor when maximum anonymity matters more than speed, such as sensitive research or whistleblowing. Use a proxy or VPN when you need dependable speed for everyday browsing, streaming, or scraping.
Getting started with Tor takes one download: the Tor Project distributes the Tor Browser free for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. No account or sign-up is required. In regions where Tor's own network is blocked, the browser includes a bridge option that connects through an unlisted relay first, though this adds another layer of delay on top of the standard triple-hop route.
Hiding your IP address on a phone works the same way it does on a desktop computer, through a proxy app, a VPN app, or a manual network setting. Whether you want to hide your IP address on an Android phone or an iPhone, the setup takes only a few minutes.
On Android, open your WiFi network's advanced settings and enter a proxy hostname and port manually, or install a dedicated proxy or VPN app that configures the connection for you. Manual proxy settings on Android only apply to the WiFi network you configure them on, not to cellular data. See our Android proxy setup guide for the full walkthrough with screenshots.
On iPhone, WiFi proxy settings live under Settings, then your WiFi network's info icon, then Configure Proxy. Manual entry needs the same host and port used on a desktop setup. Most people use a dedicated app instead, since manual configuration only covers WiFi and does not extend to cellular data. See our iPhone proxy setup guide for step-by-step instructions.
A VPN app is the simplest way to hide your IP address on either phone, since one app covers WiFi and cellular data together without separate configuration steps. Install the app, sign in, and tap connect, and the phone's IP address changes across every app at once.
Switching off WiFi and using mobile data changes your IP address too, since your carrier assigns a different address from its cellular network. This is not the same as hiding your IP: your carrier and any site you visit can still see the new address, and it changes again the next time you reconnect, so it works better as a quick IP change than as ongoing IP hiding.
Whichever method you use, confirm it worked by checking an IP checker before you rely on it for a task that depends on privacy.
Phone-specific searches for how to hide the IP address of a phone almost always mean one of these two platforms, and the steps above cover both. The one meaningful difference from desktop is that a phone constantly switches between WiFi and cellular data, so a manual proxy set on WiFi silently stops working the moment the phone drops to mobile data. A VPN app avoids this problem entirely, since it applies to both connection types without you having to reconfigure anything when you leave the house.
Mobile and ISP proxies exist specifically for this phone-and-carrier scenario. A mobile proxy routes your traffic through a real cellular IP address, at $4.50/GB through KnoxProxy, which is useful when a target site treats mobile-carrier traffic differently than home broadband traffic. An ISP proxy, at $2.90/IP, sits between residential and datacenter: it uses IP ranges registered to real internet providers but hosted on stable server infrastructure, so you get a look close to a home connection with server-grade uptime.
Several free methods exist to hide your IP address, and each one comes with a real trade-off worth understanding before you rely on it.
Free proxy lists offer public IP addresses that anyone can use at no cost. They tend to be unreliable, since the same IPs are shared by thousands of users, are often already blocked by major websites, and rarely rotate or get replaced once bad actors overload them. See our current free proxy list for tested entries updated regularly.
The Tor Browser is free and open source with no hidden catch, though the speed and exit-node blocking trade-offs covered above still apply to every Tor session.
Public WiFi networks change your IP address for free, but this is not a safe way to hide it. Unencrypted public WiFi lets anyone else on the same network intercept your traffic, and the network operator can see everything you do regardless of which IP address you are given.
Free VPN trials hide your IP address at no upfront cost, but most free VPN services fund themselves by logging and selling user browsing data, capping bandwidth after a small daily limit, or serving ads inside the app itself. A tool that hides your IP address from websites while quietly sharing your activity with its own advertisers has not solved the privacy problem, it has only moved it somewhere less visible.
For a free option without those hidden costs, KnoxProxy offers a free proxy trial with real residential and datacenter IPs, no bandwidth logging for resale, and a clear path to paid plans starting at $0.60/GB for datacenter IPs and $2.10/GB for residential IPs across 195+ countries. It is a reasonable middle ground between a free tool with hidden costs and a full paid subscription.
People searching to hide their IP online, without installing any software, usually mean a web-based proxy that runs entirely inside a browser tab. These tools work for quick, low-stakes browsing, but most cannot mask the IP address of anything outside that one tab, including other apps, downloads, or a second browser window. For anything beyond a single quick page load, an app-based proxy, VPN, or Tor session gives more complete and more consistent protection than a browser-only tool.
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KnoxProxy Research Team · Technical Content
Network engineers and proxy infrastructure specialists with 10+ years in anti-bot systems, web scraping, and IP routing.
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