Does VPN Change Your IP Address?

Yes, a VPN will change your IP address and it's just one of its superpowers...

IP address

The other day, one of our readers sent us a question asking whether a VPN changes his address. And sure enough, we replied that it does and that it is a part of its superpowers.

In the VPN app, you get to choose the country and even city in some cases — based on which you will get a different IP address.

Now you may wonder…

Why would I want to change my IP address?

There are a few reasons why you would want to change your IP address, including:

  • Accessing content that is otherwise unavailable to you. For instance, US Netflix is very different from the one in other parts of the world. Also, some services such as Hulu may not be available in your country.
  • Avoid throttling from your ISP – which is known to happen when you’re downloading stuff with BitTorrent and/or when accessing some streaming services. No need to allow your ISP to have the upper hand when you can easily “trick” it with a good VPN.
  • Preventing tracking and minimizing your digital footprint – there is no need to allow the likes of Google and Facebook to know what you’re doing online. And the same goes for various government agencies that seemingly can’t get enough data about all of us.
  • Bypassing firewalls in a workplace, university, school and so on – by doing this, you get to access the Internet in its entirety, not just some part of it.
  • Bypassing censorship – with a new IP address, you can access all the sites that are otherwise inaccessible in some places. Think about China, North Korea, countries in the Middle East, and so on.

Now, let’s further explain…

How to change your IP address

As we’ve noted above, as an end user, all you have to do is:

  • Fire up your VPN app
  • Select the country, state and/or city where you want to connect
  • And you’re good to go.

The VPN app will do all the work on your behalf in the background, routing all traffic through one of its servers so that your ISP and other parties can’t (easily) track you down. As far as the rest of the Internet knows, you are connecting from that new IP address that has been provided to you by a VPN. It’s that simple.

Are there other ways to change my IP address?

You can just connect to a different network, like at your friend’s home, in a cafe, and so on.

Alternatively, you can use a proxy, which works in a similar fashion to a VPN, but may not encrypt all traffic — making it more vulnerable.

Or, if you just want to browse the web anonymously, you can use the Tor Browser.

The best solution, however, is to use a VPN. And since it doesn’t cost a fortune — quite the contrary — it is an increasingly popular way to browse the Internet these days securely.

Since we live in times when everyone is interested to know a thing or two about us, we think everyone should be using a VPN. There is no need to give away our data that easily. And that’s exactly what many people are doing when accessing the Internet without a VPN.

You’re smarter than that. So if you still don’t have a VPN, now’s the time to change that. Hop over to our page with Best of the Best VPNs and take it from there.

Before you know it, you’ll be surfing the web in a more secure fashion — which is the way it should be.