By hiding your IP address you can free yourself from limited access of the internet, view foreign content or simply surf anonymously. Regardless of the reason, configuring a new IP in Mac OS X is a straight-forward process.
Keep in mind that there isn’t any way to literally hide your IP. Without an IP your computer would be unable to view any web pages at all because this is how requests to view content are routed. What you are actually doing is changing your “real IP” to a decoy address.
There is a huge variety of methods you can use to hide your IP with third-party applications. This tutorial will teach you about the most popular methods: hiding your IP address in Safari and Firefox.
Step 1: Confirm your current IP address
Visit CheckIP.org to view your current IP address (for comparison purposes later). Paste the IP into TextEdit or write it down.
Step 2: Get proxy server IP addresses
In order to continue with the tutorial you will need a list of valid proxy servers to pull data from. Be warned that free proxies are unstable, slow are unsuitable for viewing secure SSL pages. Still, the links below will get you started with some of the better free proxy lists. You can always get your own private proxy servers or VPN for the best performance if you’re unsatisfied with free proxies.
Step 3: Hide your IP address in Safari
Go to the “Advanced” tab, and next to “Proxies”, select “Change Settings…”
Next click on “Configure Proxies”, then choose “Manually”.
Tick the boxes for “Web Proxy (HTTP)” and “Secure Web Proxy (HTTPS)”
In the text area “Bypass proxy settings for these Hosts and Domains”, enter “localhost, 127.0.0.1”
In the box “Web Proxy Server”, enter settings from Step 2.
Click “OK” to make the changes.
Step 4: Hide your IP address in Firefox
On the first dropdown menu of Firefox, select Preferences
Go to the “Advanced” tab, then click the “Network” tab.
In the section “Configure how Firefox connects to the internet”, choose “Settings”.
Check “Manual proxy configuration” and “Use this proxy server for all protocols”
In the white text area that says “No Proxy for”, type “localhost, 127.0.0.1” (prevents relaying of internal connections).
For the HTTP Proxy and Port entries, see Step 2.
Click “Apply Now.”
Nice work! You have successfully hidden your IP address in Mac OS X!
It’s recommended that you clear the cookies from Safari and/or Firefox. Otherwise your efforts to shake off trackers will most likely be wasted.
The software developer took it out citing the reason: “Proxy support was not very good – we only support tracker proxies, not peer ones.”