How to Change an IP Address on Your Android Phone

We’ve covered the 3 most common and best ways to change your IP address on your android phone. The process is easy and straightforward, meaning that anyone reading this can guide can do it in a few minutes.

Online protection and anonymity have become one of the hottest topics for the past several years. As hackers get better and better, we must improve the ways in which we protect ourselves. Hackers aside, some of us are not okay with getting tracked during our online activities. Both situations are terrible, but there are a few ways in which we can protect ourselves. The most common one is to use a different IP address.

The IP address is like an online identification number, which can lead to unpleasant situations if it falls into the wrong hands. They can range from someone getting your location to getting hacked. Neither of them is fun, so sending someone on a wild-goose chase halfway across the world is an excellent way to stay protected and anonymous.

In the olden days, these kinds of protections were not as easy to pull off as today. The internet wasn’t as advanced, and the services overall were rudimentary. Lucky for you, things have changed, and the process is relatively easy now, and today I’ll teach you how to do it.

There are several ways of changing your IP address, and I’ll go over each one of them in a separate section.

How to Change Your IP Address Using VPN

VPN is short for Virtual Private Network, providing you with an option to change your IP address and add some additional security.

With a VPN, your Android phone’s traffic will go to the VPN’s end point, which will be routed to the destination server. What is good about VPNs is that they encapsulate the data packets in an encrypted tunnel. It means that even if someone somehow manages to intercept them, they will be of no use to that person. Since they are encrypted, the attacker won’t be able to decrypt them and use the information.

The first process to changing your IP address with a VPN is choosing the service. There are tons of VPN services available on the market today – ExpressVPN, NordVPN, IPVanish, PIA, CyberGhost, etc. Each one has a different flavor, so give them a proper overview before making the purchase.

With that out of the way, it’s time to set it up,and there are two ways of doing this. If the VPN offers a dedicated android app, you need to download it from the Play Store. Once it’s installed, all you need to do is run it, choose the location, and activate it.

The second option is if the VPN service doesn’t have an android app, meaning you’ll need to set things up manually. Here are the steps for that:

• Open your phone’s Settings
• Navigate to Network & Internet
• Tap on Advanced
• Tap on VPN
• Tap on the + sign in the corner
• Enter the required information
• Connect to the network by tapping Save

This is a slightly more complicated approach as you may need to log in to the VPNs dashboard and set some things up.

How to Change Your IP Address Using Proxy

Another great way to change your IP address on your Android phone is to use a Proxy. In many ways, the proxy works similarly to a VPN with a few key differences. The main difference is that your information doesn’t pass through an encrypted tunnel, which means that itis notas safe. I don’t claim that they are entirely unsecure, but the lack of encryption means that there are situations where it’s not wise to use them.

There are multiple types of proxies you can choose from – datacenter, residential and mobile. On the datacenter side of things, you have providers like MyPrivateProxy, HighProxies, BlazingSEO, and others, while for residential and mobile, you have: Luminati, Proxy-Cheap, Soax, Shifter, and more.

You may like, Different between Datacenter Proxies and Residential Proxies.

In order to change your IP address on your android phone, you will need to follow these steps:

• Go to Settings
• Tap on Network & Internet
• Open the Wi-Fi section
• Tap on the gear on the right side of your Wi-Fi network
• Tap on the pencil icon
• Go to Advanced Options
• Change the Proxy setting to manual
• Enter all the information required above
• Click save

How to Change Your IP Address Using Tor Browser

Tor is a browser where you can browse anonymously without hiding your real IP address. However, it is not recommended to use it for everyday usage like internet banking, login to social media because it is not secure enough. The Tor network consists of nodes managed by voluntaries. Once the connection is established, all data packets and requests will bounce between multiple nodes before reaching the destination.

Essentially, it would be like you have several proxies enabled. There is no particular procedure for setting it up; all you need to do is download and run it. It may take a minute for the connection to be established during the first start, but after that, things will go much faster. To verify that your IP address is indeed changed, check it on your regular browser and compare it with the one you got on the Tor browser.

FAQs

Where do the IP addresses come from?

It depends on the provider selling them to you. The IP addresses can be residential, mobile, or datacenter. Mobile and residential addresses are similar as they are IPs from connections that an ISP will provide to the client. Whenever you connect to the internet from your home WIFI or 3G/4G, the ISP assigns you an IP address. These kinds of IP addresses are called residential or mobile.

On the other hand, datacenter IP addresses are purchased from datacenters in bulk and then sold to customers.

Where would I get the proxy information from?

When you pay for your proxy subscription, the company’s service will provide you with all the necessary information. Everything you’ll need will either be provided to you by a representative or in the proxy’s dashboard.

Which of these three ways is the best one to change my IP address?

It depends on your needs. Each of these 3 has a different set of pros and cons. Datacenter will provide you with higher speeds, while with residential, it will be more difficult to get detected that you are using a proxy. VPNs, on the other hand, encrypt the traffic, something proxies don’t do. TOR is often a good choice for complete anonymity as it bounces your traffic through multiple nodes, something like bouncing through numerous proxies.

Which of these three is the most secure way to change my IP address?

The most secure way to change your IP address is via VPN. The service works as a proxy, and the difference is that your data gets sent through an encrypted tunnel. This ensures that even if someone manages to intercept it, they will not be able to decrypt it, rendering the entire process useless.

Can I use a free Proxy or VPN service?

You will not be able to find a free VPN anywhere on the internet. As for the proxies, tons of websites can provide you with free proxy lists. We mentioned several times in past articles that free proxies are not a good choice. These proxies are not ideal because your traffic will pass through a node that is not managed by a company. In other words, data can easily fall into the wrong hand if you use free proxies.

Is changing my IP address is legal?

Yes. No law in any country makes IP changing illegal. The process of changing the IP address with a proxy, VPN, or TOR is legal, but you should keep in mind that actions can be illegal.

What speeds should I expect when I change my IP address?

The speeds you get when you change your IP address will depend on the method you took. VPNs generally have average speeds but can vary drastically, depending on the speed of the node. It is very similar to residential or mobile proxies; if the node has a higher speed, more traffic can flow through.

Datacenter proxies are always the fastest option as they are from severs connected with gigabit connections. TOR is the slowest option because the nodes are proxies from volunteers, and the traffic bounces around from several nodes. This causes the speeds to drop and latency to rise.

How to verify if my IP address is changed?

Open your favorite browser and do a Google search on “What is my IP address.” You’ll get tons of results, and opening one of them will provide you with the active IP address. Do this before applying the proxy or VPN and do it after. If the IP addresses don’t match, then the change was successful. For TOR, your IP address won’t be changed on your entire phone. Instead, only websites and services that you open through the TOR browser.

Conclusion

Even though people have been changing their IP addresses for a very long time. As our smartphones have become smarter in recent years, we began to have a need to change an IP address on our android phones. Since it’s a newer trend, not many people know how to achieve this, which is why we’ve written this article.