I'll explain below how to use one VPN service (called Private Internet Access) on two operating systems to effectively hide behind two VPNs. For even more privacy, you can connect to a free web proxy to hide all your traffic behind three different IP addresses.
First, Get Yourself a Virtual Machine
This is important. What we'll be doing is connecting the virtual machine (VM) to the VPN and then connecting that virtual machine (plus its VPN) to your main computer (the host computer), which is also connected to a VPN.
The effect is that you can browse the internet from within the VM and be hidden behind two different VPN services in two different locations. I know it might sound unbelievable but it's completely possible - scroll down to the screenshots if you don't believe me.
What's a VM and Why Use One?
A virtual machine is a virtual computer that runs on your main computer. So, if you're using Windows 10 as your main computer but you have a virtual machine on it that's running Windows XP, the Windows 10 computer is the "host" computer and then XP one is the "VM."
The VM uses your host computer's internet connection. This is because the VM is running on your host computer, and therefore is using all the same hardware - your mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, and even the network card.
This means that under normal conditions, if your host computer has an IP address of 1.2.3.4 (this is not a real IP), your VM does as well. So, if your host computer is using a VPN, it changes both of the IP addresses to the VPN IP (e.g. 5.6.7.8). However, since the VPN software can be run in the VM as well, you can use the same program to connect the VM to a VPN server, which means the VM can be on its own server (like 9.10.11.12).
So, what happens is when you're browsing the internet on your VM, your IP address comes up as 9.10.11.12. If your traffic were somehow intercepted and your "real" IP address found, your real IP would be reported as 5.6.7.8 (the host IP, which is also a VPN). Someone would have to break through not one, but two VPNs in order to get to your actual IP address (1.2.3.4).
Pretty cool, huh? Plus, to add to that, if you use a web proxy in the VM, you can take it all a step further and be using a website like Google on a web proxy IP address, which is connected to a VPN, which is connected to another VPN, which is connected to your real IP address.
That's three hidden IP addresses separating websites from finding out your true address.
How Do I Get a VM?
You need not only virtual machine software (some are free) but also a copy of an operating system (most are not free, like Windows). The legal way to do this is to buy a copy of Windows.
VirtualBox is a nice VM program that is completely free. Another one I like, which isn't free, is VMware.
Choose a VPN Service
Clearly, once you have the virtual machine going, you need to get a VPN.
Start by going through my list of dozens of VPN services. If you can find a free one, that's awesome. If not, consider paying for one of the cheaper ones. I use Private Internet Access (PIA).
However, before you buy anything, make sure that the service lets you connect to it on more than one device at the same time. That's precisely what we're going to be doing. PIA lets you use your account on five devices simultaneously.
Note: If your favorite VPN service doesn't support using your account on more than one device at a time, you can of course use two different services. The only reason I didn't mention that is because if you're buying the VPN access, it'd be unwise to pay for two services when you could just use one that supports multiple devices.
You might also consider getting a VPN that doesn't keep any logs of your traffic. I'm not sure what you're doing with these VPNs but that's normally why people like to use them, because they don't want anyone to know what they're up to online.
Again, PIA is a good choice here because it doesn't keep any traffic logs. According to their website, "PIA absolutely does not keep any logs, of any kind, period."
Install the VPN Software
This part of the process is going to be different for each VPN service. Just download the and install the client software on both your main, host computer as well as your virtual machine.
Since I have PIA installed, you can see here what that program looks like once it's been fully installed.
This next screenshot shows just a few of the servers you can connect to through this VPN service. Some others in the US include Midwest, Texas, and Florida, as well as London, France, Romania, Japan, Brazil, Denmark, and several others.
No matter which you choose, you can just how easy it is to connect to the different servers around the globe.
Connect to a VPN Server
Now that the client software is installed, just connect to a VPN server in both the virtual machine and your host computer.
As you can see in this picture, if you're using PIA, you can just click a server from the list to have the program automatically connect you. After just a few seconds, you'll be able to confirm that your IP address is truly hidden (see the websites below to learn how to find your IP address).
To prove what I said I would at the top of this page, you can see here that my non-VPN IP address on both the VM and my host computer is the same. The top screenshot is a Windows 7 VM and the bottom one is my main Windows 10 computer (the host for the VM).
Now, the order at this point is irrelevant but I will first connect my host computer to one of the VPNs from the list. As you can see, the IP address changed once I connected to a Netherlands server:
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| Netherlands VPN IP on the Windows 10 host computer |
Since the VM is connected to the internet through the host computer, which is now connected to a Netherlands VPN server, the IP address in Windows 7 is the exact same:
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| Netherlands VPN IP on the Windows 7 virtual machine |
So, at this point, if I use the internet through either my Windows 10 or Windows 7 computer, I'll be hitting the exact same VPN server. However, that's not the point. The idea is to connect one VPN through another so that we are hidden behind two VPN servers.
From the Windows 7 VM, I can now connect to a server through the same PIA software I installed above. I'll connect to a Seattle, US server...
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| New Seattle VPN IP on the Windows 7 virtual machine |
So, what just happened? The IP address on the Windows 7 VM is different than it was before I connected to the VPN. Well, that's obvious. However, what's more is that the W7 VM is not only connected to a Seattle server, but the Seattle server is connected to a Netherlands server!
Now we're finished! Unless.... you want to browse the web through a web proxy for a third layer of privacy.
Use a Web Proxy in the VM
Now that the VM is connected to two VPNs, we can go one step deeper and browse the internet through a web proxy to get behind yet another IP address.
I'm going to use Hide My Ass!. So, after I click that link from the VM, I can put any URL into the box to browse the website under an IP address from Hide My Ass!.
For the purposes of this demonstration, we'll use IP Chicken yet again. Note how the first layer VPN in the VM was 104.200.154.30 but now that I'm looking at IP Chicken through the web proxy, the IP address is 95.154.230.252.
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| Web proxy IP address on the Windows 7 VM |
To sum it all up, what you're seeing in the screenshot above is IP Chicken being accessed through my Windows 7 virtual machine. The IP address is a Hide My Ass! IP but HMA! sees my address as a Seattle address of 104.200.154.30. That server sees my IP address as a Netherlands address of 46.166.138.143. Then, that Netherlands server sees my genuine IP address.
However, since the PIA VPN service doesn't keep logs of any of my traffic, I can rest assured that pretty much nobody has a log of me accessing the IP Chicken website from my Windows 7 virtual machine.
How to Find Your IP Address
Obviously, I used IP Chicken to look at my public IP address in my examples but there are plenty of other ways to do it:
- http://www.whatsmyip.org
- http://whatismyipaddress.com
- https://www.iplocation.net
- http://www.myipaddress.com/show-my-ip-address
- http://www.my-ip-address.net
- Google can do it too. Just type "what's my ip" as a new search
Note: Please contact me if you have any questions with anything on this page.