Can the IP address be changed?

Immutability of IP addresses

In a computer network, an IP address is an identifier used to uniquely identify a network device.

Typically, the IP addresses used by regular users are assigned by the network service provider, which means that users cannot change their public IP addresses directly.

When a user connects to the Internet, an IP address is assigned by the network service provider, which does not change until the user disconnects from the network or reconnects to the network. Thus, fundamentally, IP addresses are immutable.

Address masquerading using IP proxies

Although the public IP address cannot be changed, users can still change their public IP address by using an IP proxy for address masquerading.

By using an IP proxy, a user's network request is routed through the proxy server before being forwarded to the target server, thus hiding the user's real IP address while using the proxy server's IP address for communication.

In this way, although the user's public IP address does not really change, the user does use the proxy server's IP address in network communications.

Dynamic IP and Static IP

In addition to public IP addresses, there are also dynamic and static IPs. Dynamic IP means that the network service provider dynamically assigns an IP address to the user each time the user connects to the network, while static IP means that the user is assigned a fixed IP address.

Therefore, for users with dynamic IP addresses, their IP addresses change every time they connect to the network, and can be regarded as a kind of "changeable" IP addresses; while for users with static IP addresses, their IP addresses are fixed and cannot be changed by themselves.

In general, IP addresses are changeable to some extent, and users can achieve address masquerading by using IP proxies, but fundamentally, public IP addresses are assigned by network service providers and cannot be changed by users themselves.

In addition, the existence of dynamic and static IPs also has an impact on the changeability of IP addresses, and users should choose the appropriate type of IP address to use according to their own circumstances.