How to hide your IP address
Hiding an IP address takes one click. Keeping it hidden is the harder problem — because four separate leaks will hand out your real address while the tunnel is still connected and apparently working.
Hide your IPWhat your IP address gives away
On its own an IP address is not your name. What it does reliably reveal is your internet provider, your rough location — usually the city, sometimes closer — and a stable identifier that ties together everything you do from that connection until it changes.
That last part is what matters. Advertising networks use it to join sessions across sites. Websites use it to decide which country’s content, prices or catalogue you see. Anyone who receives your traffic — a forum, a game server, a torrent swarm — logs it and can see approximately where you are.
Your provider sits on the other side of the same link and sees the reverse: every domain you connect to, tied to your account and your name. In many countries they are legally required to keep those records for months.
Four ways to hide it
A VPN
Encrypts everything leaving the device and presents the server’s address instead of yours. Sites see the server; your provider sees an encrypted connection and no destinations. The VPN operator is the one party who could see both, which is why their logging policy is the only thing that matters when choosing one.
Tor
Three relays, none of which knows both who you are and where you are going. Stronger anonymity than any VPN against a well-resourced observer, and free. Slow enough to rule out streaming or calls, and widely blocked.
A proxy
Swaps your address for a single application, usually a browser. No encryption, so your provider still sees every domain, and the proxy operator sees everything in the clear. Weakest option on this list.
Public Wi-Fi
Borrows someone else’s address, which hides yours from the sites you visit. It also puts you on a network run by a stranger, alongside everyone else on it. Hides you from one party by exposing you to another.
Four leaks that hand it back
Each of these happens while the VPN is connected and showing green. None of them is visible unless you test.
DNS leaks
Your device keeps asking your provider’s DNS resolver to look up domain names, outside the tunnel. Your traffic is hidden but the list of every site you visit is not. Check with the DNS leak test.
WebRTC leaks
A browser feature built for video calls asks your device for its real address and hands it to any page that asks, straight past the VPN. Check with the WebRTC leak test.
IPv6 leaks
Many VPNs tunnel IPv4 and quietly ignore IPv6. If your connection has both, everything IPv6-capable travels outside the tunnel with your real address attached.
Reconnect gaps
When a tunnel drops — moving between networks, waking from sleep — traffic keeps flowing unprotected until it re-establishes. A kill switch blocks all traffic during that window instead of letting it out.
Even with zero leaks, your IP is not the only thing identifying you. Browser fingerprinting combines screen resolution, installed fonts, time zone, language, GPU and canvas rendering into an identifier that survives a new IP, a cleared cookie jar and a private window. Run the fingerprint test to see how unique yours is, and the privacy check for everything a page can read about you right now.
Who can still see what
With a no-logs VPN connected and no leaks, this is the actual picture. Anyone claiming more than this is selling something.
| Party | Your real IP | Sites you visit | Page contents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Websites you visit | No | Their own | Yes |
| Your internet provider | Yes | No | No |
| Network admin / Wi-Fi owner | No | No | No |
| Your VPN provider | Yes | Could, if they logged | No |
| Someone on the same Wi-Fi | No | No | No |
Common questions
Can my internet provider see my IP address if I use a VPN?
Does incognito mode hide my IP address?
Is hiding your IP address illegal?
How do I know my IP is actually hidden?
Can a VPN provider see my real IP address?
Test it yourself
Hidden, and verifiably so
LunoVPN ships DNS, WebRTC and IPv6 leak protection plus a kill switch, and publishes an independently audited no-logs policy. Test all of it before you pay.