There are many reasons why you might want to hide your IP when you are on the Web. Many websites have the capability of monitoring your activity every time you visit their website and with this information, they can send you personalized ads or other local information. If you are like me, this may not provide the full user experience you might want. There are a number of choices available that you can implement to hide your online identity and avoid getting tracked.
Anonymous Downloaders
If you frequently download files on P2P file sharing sites, then your Internet Service Provider can easily track and shut you down. P2P friendly services like The Cloak, A4Proxy and Anonymizer.com are tools that you can use to keep your computer’s IP anonymous and still allow you to use your broadband connection to download these files without the fear of being tracked. While most of these services come at a small fee, they are worth the price tag if anonymity is of utmost importance in your online activities.
Email and Web Surfing
For one reason or another, mostly political, you may wish to air your ideas online while remaining anonymous to avoid retribution. Most Internet Service Providers can easily monitor your web surfing activities and emails if they want to. However, by the use of free proxy servers that are distributed all over the Web, you can protect your freedom. By combining proxy servers with email scrambling services, which can also be located online by doing a simple Google search, even intercepted emails will still remain anonymous effectively giving you Internet freedom of expression and communication.
Other things that you can do protect yourself is to use cookie management software, use encryption when sending personal details online, avoid responding to spam emails and be conscious of Web Security by installing anti-spyware and an updated anti-virus.