5 Excellent Web Proxy Sites to Hide Your IP Address

Here are 2 problems I see with web proxy sites these days:

• New web proxy sites appear every day. Most of them are full with ads and last for few days.
• People create these sites for many purposes, but the 2 primary ones are making money and stealing information such as passwords. Most online proxy sites are rarely created with a true purpose of offering privacy protection.

Before we start, here is my original IP address according to ip-adress.com:

So are there any decent web proxy sites out there? I’ve collected a big list and filtered them. I saw how long they exist using a Whois tool and archive.org. Fortunately, I found some great ones. Here are the best:

1. Hide My Ass

Website existing since: 2005

Short review: I put Hide My Ass! #1 because they exist for over 4 years and have all the signals they are reputable. Hide My Ass is also in the top 2000 most popular websites (according to Alexa).

Proof it works: (IP address checked with ip-address.com)

Website URL: http://hidemyass.com

These guys also have some other sites of this type in their network but I’ve tested them and they are all the same IP so don’t use these sites, just use the main site.

2. The Cloak

Website existing since: 1999

Short review: The only site I’ve seen that clearly puts a disclaimer on the left (as you’ll see later, this is a very important thing for reputable sites of this kind). According to my indicators (age and popularity), they are very reliable site.

Proof it works:

Website URL: http://www.the-cloak.com/

3. Anonymouse

Website existing since: 2004

Short review: I have no idea how they came with their ‘existing since 1997’ text. According to a domain whois tool I used, the domain is created in 2004. Anyway, they are popular and been here for a long time so that’s why I decided to put them on this list.

Proof it works:

[note: I used whatismyip.com because for some reason ip-adress.com didn’t work using Anonymouse.]

Website URL: http://anonymouse.org/

4. Proxy.org

Website existing since: 2004

Short review: This is an engine that crawls and filters various proxies, great if you’re looking for fresh new proxies to access websites blocked by your school, for example. I recommend you only use the websites in green, they are usually the most reliable ones.

Proof it works: (using 2 of the sites on the list):

Website URL: http://proxy.org/

5. Proxify

Website existing since: 2004

Short review: This is UK proxy with some more advanced options. Good site if you’re looking for reliable non-US web proxies.

Proof it works:

Website URL: http://proxify.co.uk/

What to be wary of when choosing a web proxy site

If you plan to use sites other than the ones above, I recommend you be wary of the following:

• Don’t use web proxies which are on .info domain names

INFO domains cost $1 per year. COM/NET/ORG domains cost $10 per year. My logic says: If the webmaster couldn’t give plus $9 and buy a reliable domain extension, then why would he bother to provide a reliable service? Most of the .info domains are full with ads and, according to some people, owned mostly by hackers who can compromise and log every activity.

• Check the age of the domain

Before browsing  with a web proxy site, go to whois.sc, enter the domain name there and see when it was created. If it was created less than 2 years ago, don’t use it. If it was created this or the last year, be wary. The older the domain and the website is, the better.

• Check for Disclaimer or TOS

99.999% of the reliable sites offering web proxies have either a disclaimer, a privacy policy and/or terms of service. The more you browse the web, the more you notice this.

For the above examples, here is the disclaimer/TOS for Hide My Ass, The Cloak, Anonymouse,Proxy.org and Proxify. In comparison, here’s an ideal website you DON’T want to use as a proxy:

I hope you’ve learned a lot!