1. How To Find Out My Public Ip Address Vpn Proxy For Mac

Use dig command for determining my public IP address: Open the Terminal application. Type the following dig (domain information groper) command on a Linux, OS X, or Unix-like operating systems to see your own public IP address assigned by the ISP: Or. You should see your IP address on screen.

The state-of-the-art way of avoiding IP tracking is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) like. The way it works is that you log into the VPN just like you would log into your ISP. After that point, all of your traffic goes to the VPN company which then sends it out to the internet.

If somebody sniffs your packets, they will just see one encrypted stream going to-and-from the VPN company. For example, if you were logged into a VPN right now, we would have no idea who you were. Our server logs would show an IP address that belongs to your VPN company, and that would be all we would know.

We could identify the VPN company, and guess at what country you are in based on their home address, but that’s about it. And even that doesn’t always work because with a VPN like you can select which server to log into, and they have servers all over the world! You could live in Iceland, log into their Panama server, and the internet would have no clue as to your location.

Of course, nothing is perfect. The VPN company knows who you are, and if they get a subpena, they might have to hand over your name. However, VPNs work well enough and have grown in popularity in response to the “Six Strikes” campaign by U.S. If you cannot use a VPN, there are some low-tech things you can do: Make Sure That Your IP Address Changes Frequently. If you have a static IP address at work, one that never changes, you might want to do the majority of your surfing from a different computer.

Use to see your IP Address. Most people have “leased” IP addresses with their cable-modem or DSL accounts. That means your IP won’t change until you turn off your modem. So, power it down as often as you feel necessary. America Online’s dial-up accounts go through a thing called a proxy server. What this means is that when you are logged into AOL, you do not make direct contact with the websites you visit. You only talk to the proxy server, which in turn contacts the website.

The IP address logged into the website’s server logs are not yours, but that of the proxy server. And since AOL has many proxy servers, chances are that more than one IP address will be logged during a session since the proxy servers are load-balanced, which means that they take turns. The bottom line is that using an AOL account makes you harder to track. Some other ISP’s use proxy servers also, so you can ask about that when choosing an ISP.

Change Your “User Agent” Most web servers log the browser you are using, and if you have a unique “User Agent” string, it can be used to track you. Here is an example produced by the Opera browser: Opera/9.50 (X11; FreeBSD 7.0-PRERELEASE i386; U; en) Anybody using that user-agent sticks out like a sore thumb. Use to see your user-agent.

To learn how to change the user agent in your browser, Google-up something like this: “change user agent Firefox”. Keep in mind that many websites use your user-agent to determine what content to send to you. If your user-agent indicates that you are on a mobile device, you might see a completely different page than when you are on your notebook. So be careful when changing it.

Your user-agent will also change automatically whenever you update your web browser, and maybe when you upgrade your operating system. So, you might want to check it after doing those things. Don’t Allow Cookies Most people know that cookies can be used for tracking. You can go into your browser’s security settings and turn them off completely, or have them flushed when you close down the browser. Never Click Links To prevent a website from logging where you linked from, never click on a link or advert.

Instead, hover your mouse over the link to see what it is, and then type it into your browser’s address bar. Or just Google the domain name of the site, or product name advertised. This data is called the “referrer”.

So, if you found this page with a Google search, we could look in our server log and see exactly what you typed in. Chances are it would be something like “avoid IP tracking”. When you click a link, your browser includes the URL of the page containing the link. To prevent this data from being sent, look in your browser’s docs and see if you can find an option to not send the referrer data. In 2011, Google began to block the referrer for logged-in users. So, if you were logged into Gmail or AdWords, or another Google website, when you searched for this site, we could not tell what you searched on.

But of course, Google still knows. Note: “Referrer” is sometimes miss-spelled “referer”, probably because it was spelled that way in the original Apache server software.

Just something to keep in mind when searching. Tor is free, open-source software produced by a non-profit organization, and a volunteer international network of servers. Tor encrypts your traffic and sends it through this network masking your real IP address.

Tor has been used by dissidents in dictatorships like Iran and Egypt, however make sure to read the for a discussion of its potential vulnerabilities. Tor volunteers use their own bandwidth to run their servers, so as you can imagine, they are not friendly to the network being used for file-sharing applications like BitTorrent.

Welcome to this guide on proxy servers. We'll guide you through everything you need to know about proxies and proxy servers. What is a Proxy Server? A proxy server (or “proxy”) is a computer that sits between your computer and a wider network. This “wider network” is usually the internet. Briefly put, a proxy server acts as an intermediary between your computer and the internet.

How Does a Proxy Work? A proxy will hide your Internet Protocol (IP) address from anyone on the internet. A website will see the IP address of the proxy server, instead of your real IP address.

You will appear to access the internet from wherever the proxy server is physically located. If the proxy is located in a different country to where you are, you will appear to access the internet from that country. Disadvantages of proxy server:. Whoever is running the proxy will be able to monitor all your unencrypted internet traffic. Note that most secure websites protect your connection using.

This includes banks, email services, and online shops. As with your Internet Service Provider (ISP), when you connect to an HTTPS website the proxy owner can see that you are accessing a website. However, it cannot know what you get up to on that site.

The proxy owner will also know your real IP address. Many (but not all) proxies use encryption. This means that it will encrypt the traffic between you and the server. When using an encrypted proxy, your ISP cannot see what you get up to on the internet. ISPs usually cooperate with government surveillance. Therefore, encrypted proxies can be effective at preventing blanket, un-targeted government surveillance.

The proxy owner will still be able to monitor traffic when not connected to HTTPS websites, as it is the proxy server that encrypts and decrypts traffic entering and exiting it. You will need to trust your proxy provider Both Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and the are specific examples of encrypted proxies. Public/ Free Proxy Servers A public proxy is a proxy server that someone makes available free of charge to the general public.

Alternatively known as free or open proxy servers. Public proxies come in unencrypted (HTTP), encrypted (HTTPS), and Socket Secure (SOCKS, which may or may not be encrypted) flavors.

The most significant advantage of public proxies is that they cost no money to use. The fact that you can freely switch between proxies located all over the globe also has privacy benefits. However:. They can be very unstable, and regularly go offline without notice.

They also tend to be very slow. You have no reason to trust the proxy operator, who can snoop on all internet traffic that does not connect to an HTTPS website or service. Many proxy servers are run by criminals. Indeed, it is calculated that of free proxies are not safe!. In addition to snooping on unencrypted web traffic, almost 40% of free proxies actively tamper with your data as it passes through them. 18% are guilty of injecting HTML into static web pages viewed (ads), while 20.6% inject JavaScript.

On the flip side, the proxy owner can get into trouble for any illegal activity you perform! This is because it looks as if that activity is coming from their server. I strongly recommend against using free public proxies. If you absolutely must, then only connect to websites and services using HTTPS. And never use a public proxy that bans the use of HTTPS.

The only possible reason for it to do this is so that it can snoop on or interfere with your web traffic. Really just don’t! Note that similar issues plague a. Free Proxy Server List Unlike some other websites, we will not recommend any free proxy servers as there is just no reason to trust them (with the exception of the one run by, which is run by a reputable VPN provider). If you do wish to use a public proxy, then Google will provide you with plenty of free proxy server lists. Private Proxy Server Individuals or companies can run their own private proxy servers for their personal use, or the use of their staff.

The term “private proxy,” however, also refers to commercial proxies that offer use of their server(s) for a fee. VPNs are by far the most common form of private commercial proxy. Private proxies and VPN services are generally much faster and more reliable than free proxies.

The fact that they are businesses rather than random individuals also makes them a known quantity that can be held to account. Indeed, many VPN companies have built up fearsome reputations for their dedication to security and privacy. That said, it is essential to take care to choose a reputable. The same advice holds true for all commercial proxy services, but thanks to the popularity of VPNs, other forms of commercial proxy service represent a fairly small and unexamined market.

No proxy-only services that I am aware of have built up the reputation, or received nearly as much scrutiny, as the big-name VPN companies. It is worth noting that some VPN companies also offer more conventional HTTP/HTTPS or SOCKS proxy servers. Types of Proxy Server HTTP Proxy is the standard protocol used to connect elements of the World Wide Web. Importantly, connections to HTTP servers are not encrypted. On the plus side, no encryption means vastly reduced computational overheads. This means HTTP proxies can readily accept multiple connections without severely impacting internet speeds for users. Note, however, that the physical distance your data must travel will impact your internet speeds.

An HTTP proxy interprets network traffic. This allows it to do high-level things with the traffic. Such as search its cache to see if it can serve a response without going to the destination. Or consult a whitelist/blacklist to see if a URL is allowed. By default, HTTP proxies are “blind” to traffic and will just ignore it. This makes them great for accessing unencrypted HTTP web pages, but little else.

HTTP proxies can handle TCP traffic if the method is used, but its use is entirely dependent on the proxy owner. Because the HTTP protocol cannot interpret the TCP traffic, all TCP traffic is simply forwarded.

This gives HTTP proxies that use CONNECT much of the flexibility of SOCKS proxies. You must configure each software client to connect to the proxy. The same is also true of HTTPS and SOCKS proxies. HTTPS Proxy stands for HTTP Secure (or HTTP over SSL/TLS). Any website that needs to secure users’ communications will use it. When you connect to an HTTPS proxy, it will encrypt all the data between you and the server. HTTPS uses TCP port 443, so all HTTPS proxies must use the HTTP CONNECT method in order to establish a TCP connection.

SOCKS Proxy Socket Secure proxies work at a lower level than HTTP proxies. They do not try to interpret web traffic, and just pass along all requests they receive. This makes them much more versatile than regular HTTP proxies.

SOCKS proxies can handle all kinds of internet traffic, including POP3 and SMTP for emails, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for uploading files to websites. They can also handle torrent traffic, which is why SOCKS proxies are sometimes referred to as “torrent proxies.” Due to this flexibility, SOCKS servers usually handle a much higher volume of traffic than HTTP servers. This means that SOCKS proxies are generally much slower than regular proxy servers. SOCKS5 is the latest version of the SOCKS protocol and adds various authentication methods.

This is useful for commercial providers who wish to limit access to their proxy servers to customers only. The SOCKS protocol fully supports HTTPS, and it is common for SOCKS proxies to encrypt traffic in this way. One downside, however, is that SOCKS proxy connections are not as well supported by software clients as HTTP proxy connections. For more information about using a VPN when torrenting, see our guide. Web Proxy Web proxies allow you to connect to a proxy server from inside your browser window.

This proxy server can be either an HTTP or HTTPS proxy. Web proxies are usually free, and have the advantage that you do not need to download and install any extra software or configure your browser settings. They are therefore very easy to use. Many free proxy websites, however, fund themselves using extensive advertising. Web proxies are also poor at handling complicated webpage layouts and tend to fall flat when encountering things such as Flash, Java, and JavaScript scripts (although this not necessarily a bad thing!). VPN provider also offers a free web proxy. Forward Proxy Other than reverse proxies (see below), all proxies discussed in this article are technically referred to as.

They sit between your computer and a broader network, which usually means the internet. Under this setup, you connect to the proxy server, which then connects you to the internet. Reverse Proxy As its name suggests, a does almost the opposite of a standard forward proxy. It sits between the internet and a much smaller group of servers.

A typical setup would be a reverse proxy acting as a gateway between the internet and a corporate Local Area Network (LAN). In order to access resources on the LAN network, you would first need to connect to the reverse proxy.

In addition to acting as a gateway, the reverse proxy can protect the entire network using HTTPS. It can also perform load balancing, content caching, data compression, and other tasks useful to corporate LAN networks.

Transparent Proxy Transparent proxies are so-called because they require no configuration on your part. You often don’t even know that you are using one.

Transparent proxies have many good uses. For example, content filtering in libraries, or to authenticate users of public WiFi. That sign-in page you see in your browser when you connect your laptop to the WiFi in Starbucks? That is a transparent proxy in action. Transparent proxies can be a pain in the ass, however. If not implemented well, issues with caching and authentication can arise. Browsers may also detect the proxy server, and determine that it constitutes a security risk.

In this case, they may refuse all connections through the proxy server. Although potentially very annoying, there is a good reason for browsers to do this. Use of transparent proxies is a classic form of (MitM) attack. In these cases, the attacker redirects your traffic without your knowledge to a malicious server that can then intercept it. In the library example above, I mentioned “content filtering” in a good context. But there is another word for it – censorship.

ISPs, for example, can use transparent proxies to filter content on political, social, and religious grounds. You can use a VPN, encrypted proxy, or a HTTPS webpage, to prevent a transparent proxy from snooping on you. Just to prove that life is never simple, proxy lists often rate servers based on their anonymity level.

I will discuss this more a little later, but proxies that provide very little “anonymity” are rated as transparent proxies. VPN As noted earlier, VPN servers are a specialized form of proxy. The primary differences between VPNs and regular proxies are:. VPNs work at the system level, rather than on a per-app basis. Therefore it only needs configuring once.

They use a variety of, which are usually very strong. In general, VPN connections are more secure and easier to configure than regular proxy connections.

This makes commercial VPN services more popular than commercial proxy services. This, in turn, has allowed some VPN services to establish very good reputations. The Tor Network The Tor network is free and aims to provide users with true anonymity.

It does this by routing all internet connections through at least three random nodes. These “nodes” are really just volunteer-run proxy servers. The data is re-encrypted multiple times – each time it passes through a node. Each node is only aware of the IP addresses “in front” of it, and the IP address of the node “behind” it. This should mean that at no point can anyone know the whole path between your computer and the website you are trying to connect to.

The main downside is that the Tor network is very slow to use. Proxy URL A proxy URL is not really a proxy (server) at all! It is a web address (URL) that forwards to another address. The most common use for proxy URLs is to evade censorship blocks. A great example of this in action is the URL www.bestvpn.com, which is blocked in China. We, therefore, created a special URL: www.bestvpn-china.com is not blocked in China and will redirect to www.bestvpn.com. This allows users in China to access our website.

How To Use a Proxy Private proxy services (including VPNs) will provide you with all the details you need to connect to their servers. They often supply very detailed setup guides. Except for VPNs, you must individually configure each program (or app) you use to connect to the proxy server. To connect to a proxy, you need its IP address (proxy server address) and port number. You may also need a username and password if authentication is required. There are to be “hundreds of thousands” of public proxies on the internet. To find one, just type “free proxies,” “public proxy servers,” “open proxy list,” (or similar) into your search engine.

Good examples are. To configure a proxy server in Firefox, go to Options - Advanced - Network tab - Connection Settings. Select “Manual proxy configuration:” and enter the IP address and port number of the server.

Configuration details depend on the individual software, but hopefully, you get the idea. “Anonymity” Levels for Proxies Many proxy lists categorize proxies based on the level of “anonymity” they provide. Just to be clear, these ratings relate to what websites and other internet resources see when you are using the proxy. The proxy owner knows exactly who you are from your IP address, and can monitor your non-HTTPS internet traffic.

How To Find Out My Public Ip Address Vpn Proxy For Mac

Thus you are never “anonymous.” It would, therefore, be better to describe these ratings as privacy ratings. They come in three levels, with Level 1 providing the highest degree of privacy. Transparent Proxies (Level 3) The confusingly named transparent proxies forward a great deal of information about you to any website you visit. They, therefore, provide almost no privacy and are primarily used for caching (which is why they are often called caching proxies).

Technically speaking, a transparent proxy (in this context) will hide your real IP address, but only very superficially. Your real IP address still in the request header sent to the webpage and is therefore very easy to find out. Anonymous Proxies (Level 2) So-called anonymous proxies provide a much higher level of privacy. They hide your IP address from any website you visit but do not hide that you are using a proxy server.

Indeed, anonymous servers usually identify themselves as proxy servers by attaching “FORWARDED” headers to each page request. Elite Proxies (Level 1) Also known as high anonymity proxies, elite proxies will not only hide your IP address but will also not alert a website (or another internet resource) that requests are being made via a proxy. The website will, of course, still know the IP address of the proxy server.

Elite servers tend to be the most popular kind of open server, which also means they can be the slowest. Proxy exclusivity Commercial proxy providers sometimes categorize proxies based on exclusivity. The more exclusive a proxy is, the more it will cost. Dedicated/ exclusive proxy – you have a proxy all to yourself. Having a dedicated proxy also usually means that you have a static IP address. Dedicated proxies are likely to provide better performance than ones shared with others, and are useful for evading IP blocks such as those imposed by Netflix.

On the other hand, they are less “anonymous” because that IP address is only yours. Semi-shared proxy – usually means that you share the proxy with three other people. General proxy – same as a free proxy that anyone can use – so in all likelihood you will share that proxy with many other people.

Conclusion Proxies are very popular and can be very useful. Open proxies, however, tend to be slow and unstable. They are also dangerous to use. Commercial HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS proxy services provide a much more satisfying experience and are much safer to use. There is a reason, however, why these are not as popular as VPN services. For a similar price per month, VPN services are easier to configure, protect your entire internet connection, and usually use stronger encryption. Many (but by no means all) have also established strong reputations as reliable companies that will protect your privacy.

Recommendations In theory, it would be possible to recommend some commercial proxies, but we cannot do this without reviewing a wide selection of services on offer. We may get around to this at some point in the future, but at present, we have no grounds for recommending one proxy service over another. What we do know about, however, are VPNs! And as I have discussed in this article, VPNs are almost always better than proxies!