The straightforward, but slightly less than helpful answer to the question – ‘how can I get a Canadian IP address’ is of course – move to Canada.  Yet it’s not the only option you’ll be relieved to hear, especially those with a simple requirement to access a Canadian only website.

An IP address is the unique network number that every single device connected to the internet has to possess.   There’s no exceptions, ranging from your smart phone, your tablet or even that internet enabled clock that sits on your kitchen table.  What’s more because it is unique, potentially every network connection or request that is made by each device can be traced exactly back to it’s source through this address.

On a technical note, this wouldn’t be so bad.  After all it’s completely logical that any global network will need an ‘address’ for each device to communicate properly.  Yet this address is increasingly being used by the websites we communicate with to perform various functions.  For example, your IP address is nearly always checked to determine your physical location.  Sometimes this is for useful purposes like customizing your search results for example.  Yet many other times it’s actually used to deny or filter your access to a specific site or resource.

Look what happens when a non-Canadian surfer try’s to access this popular Canadian broadcast channel –

Completely and utterly locked out of all the best content on this website. There’s loads of movies and TV shows on the site available for free but sadly only if you are in Canada. The only way that this website can determine your location is from your IP address. It doesn’t matter what your nationality is, or where you’re from just where you are physically connecting from. This same error message would be given from a computer a hundred yards across the US/Canadian border, it’s that petty !

So How to Get a Canadian IP Address

Fortunately we can break out of these stupid restrictions and take control of our own IP address. It’s not actually possible to physically change our address as it’s normally allocated directly by whatever is enabling our access to the internet. Usually for home connections that’s through an ISP (Internet Service Provider). However it is possible to hide your real address and use a different one instead like a disguise. Just watch this brief video about getting a Canadian IP address –

As you can see, simply by using something called a VPN (Virtual Private Network) then you can effectively choose the IP address that is visible to these sites. So if you happen to be a resident of Canada who is travelling or on holiday for example who is denied access to their favorite ‘home’ sites then they can just use a VPN to access them.

When you use a VPN it doesn’t matter where you actually are located what’s important is that your VPN is based in the correct location. So if you need a Canadian IP address then you need to connect to a server based in Canada.  That’s the only address the web site will see and it determines what you can access.

There’s lots of VPN services around, but our favorite is Identity Cloaker.