Hiding IP address with Firefox

Posted in Technicalon Sep 30, 2006

Quick answer to the title: you can’t.

One of the search queries on my other blog was: firefox how to keep ip address off internet. I thought I would help this person out and explain things to them.

When you load up a web page, Firefox (or any Internet browser) sends a request to a web server that in English might say, “Please send the contents of this page http://example.com/ back to me at address 10.1.2.3.” The web server receives this request and sends the contents of the page back to Firefox at the provided address where it is displayed to the user. This makes it really difficult to download web pages while not revealing your IP (Internet Protocol) address to others.

There are ways by using a proxy so that your address doesn’t go all the way to the end web server. In this way, your browser sends the request to the proxy, and the proxy creates its own request to the web server. The web server sends the page contents to the proxy, and the proxy forwards the contents back to your Firefox browser as a response to your original request.

There is this proxy service out there called the Anonymizer which does this sort of thing. I believe they charge money for their service, but you might be able to find a similar service out there. I do not endorse or recommend any products, I’m only stating here that they exist.

Firefox however, is a browser that is designed to be more secure and keep your information more private. You can download it by clicking here.

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