What is a DE IP address?

Every device connected to the Internet uses an IP address to be identified in the large network that forms the Internet. Every ISP (Internet Service Provider) or hosting provider has assigned a range of IP addresses that it distributes to its subscribers. Next, the assignment of an IP block is done geographically, thus, the location of every device connected to the Internet that uses a certain IP address is known with a fair precision.

A DE IP or German IP address is an IP that is assigned to an ISP or hosting provider that provides Internet services in Germany. The most common German IPs have the following format:

• 2.160.0.0 to 2.175.255.255 (Telekom Deutschland GmbH)
• 31.224.0.0 to 31.255.255.255 (Telekom Deutschland GmbH)
• 37.80.0.0 to 37.95.255.255 (Telekom Deutschland GmbH)
• 46.80.0.0 to 46.95.255.255 (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• 53.0.0.0 to 53.255.255.255

If you are interested in finding more info regarding the DE IP blocks you should check this post.

Why would you need a DE IP from your VPN provider?

There are several reasons one could consider when searching for a DE IP. Let’s take them one by one.

Protecting online privacy while browsing

While traveling or when accessing the Internet from public places or even at home it is recommended to protect yourself from hackers by encrypting the traffic data that comes and goes to/from your devices. VPN services are doing exactly that and you should always have one at hand.

Why connect to a server in France? Why not to one in the United States or Canada, for example? First of all, you should know that what you win by encrypting the data you lose to the connection speed. And the distance to the server you are connecting to is also important. Thus, if you are located in France you should choose a server that is closed to your location and minimize the speed loss.

Accessing streaming sites that are only available for German users

That is probably the main reason users need a DE IP for unblocking sites. There are a lot of streaming channels that are restricted to users located in France. By connecting to a VPN service with German IP the restricted sites are tricked and the access is allowed.

Here are several Germany restricted channels that can be unblocked by VPNs, like Das Erste, DSF, KI.KA, 3sat, ARTE, NDR.

List of VPN providers with servers located in Germany

Finally, you may find below a list of several such DE IP VPN services:

Do you know other DE IP VPN / German IP VPN services? Feel free to share them in the comments.

CyberGhost is a free VPN service with servers located in Germany. It’s a commercial VPN service that also has a free version. If you want to surf online anonymously, the free version is enough. The free version, called Basic, it’s limited 10GB a month broadband usage. If you’re going to get more, you need to pay 9.99 Euro a month, and you will get 40GB and 2GB online storage space.

How to get started with CyberGhost free VPN

First, you need to download the setup, unzip it and install it. The setup will also install the .NET Framework 3.0 if you don’t have it already.

The next step is to create a CyberGhost VPN account (Click on Create new account button). You will receive a confirmation code on your email that you should use and activate the account.

Next, login to your account. You will get the following screen.

If you want to use the free version, click “Connect basic.” Wait a moment; it will connect to service. Finally, you get a German IP address. Check it by visiting xmyip.com.

To close the VPN service click “Close basic” button.

More features

CyberGhost not only anonymizes your connection but also offers traffic statistics regarding your online activity (yearly and monthly). Another nice feature is that you can exclude some URLs from being anonymized (Exceptions tab). This way you can use the VPN for only sensitive sites, not for all of them.

CyberGhost VPN: Fixing Network Cable Unplugged Error

One of the readers of this blog, Tran, has complained that he was could run CyberGhost VPN:

After reading your article, I tried to install CyberGhost. The installation process is smooth. After completing to install the software, I restarted the computer. But there was a problem: when I double clicked CyberGhost VPN network icon in MY NETWORK PLACE to connect, a noticed “A NETWORK CABLE IS UNPLUGGED” error, while my PC still connected to the internet.

I was not able to reproduce the error, but I found a comment on warezscene.org from Jetman that offers several possible solutions. I reproduce below Jetman’s comment.

Question: Cyberghost VPN Fixing Network Cable Unplugged Error in Windows

Free proxy from CyberGhost

The guys from CyberGhost told us they have a new free Proxy and that we should check them out- which we did. So here are our impressions:

CyberGhost free proxy is a web-based proxy. It means that as an internet user, I don’t expect to install any software on my computer to be able to use it. But with the word free service, I always expect a lot of advertisements (they should be paid in one way or another, aren’t they?)

Accessing iPlayer using the proxy

So, I pointed my browser to the proxy server, then, along with the field for entering the URL of the website I want to reach (I chose BBC iPlayer – we all know that BBC UK iPlayer isn’t available in my country). But something just got me wondering: some options can be ticked on or off as you can see from the screenshot below

I didn’t want to have a headache wondering why I would need to un-tick those checkboxes, so I left them ticked (my view is simple: most regular users wouldn’t even care about these options unless they want to go the “advanced mode” way).

Back to BBC iPlayer: the issue was simple: the list of proxy servers does not contain UK country: we have Germany, Netherlands, Russia, and Ukraine.  I chose the Ukraine-based proxy and inserted BBC iPlayer into the Cyberghost Free Proxy. The good thing is that at least, I didn’t see a lot of pop-up showing-up here and then.

But the advertisement takes 1/3 top of the browsing window, so you have to scroll down to see the actual website you are trying to see. And guess what?  As expected, I couldn’t watch the BBC iPlayer. But anyway, I guess it would work for any country-based limited online service that falls into the list of countries aforementioned. Not sure yet. If anyone has a service that would fit into this criterion, feel free to mention it so that I can test.

Checking the IP address

But for the heck of testing, I browsed xmyip.com from the free proxy, and it reports me with a Ukraine-based IP address. So, at least, I know that the IP address sent to web-servers that I reach through this Proxy server isn’t my actual IP address.  I played a bit changing the country of the proxy, and xmyip.com reported the right country. Moreover, by using the “Audit My PC anonymous surfing,” the primary results I received when using the free proxy is satisfying: it doesn’t show my actual GPS location, nor my real country and IP address.

From what I’ve seen, this Free proxy works for changing my IP address, and it is not so cluttered as do other free proxies. However, the limited list of countries where they provide Proxy is a shortcoming so far.

Conclusion

CyberGhost is a lovely VPN service, and the most important thing is that it offers an excellent FREE version. European users will benefit from the proximity to the CyberGhost server as opposed to the one in Colorado provided by Hotspot Shield.