If you’re planning to travel abroad, whether for a vacation or an extended stay, you may want to think about ensuring that your IP address is still French while you’re gone. Whether for business or personal reasons, it can be frustrating to try accessing the internet from another country, only to discover that you can’t connect to the sites you took for granted back in France.
Why Do I Need a French IP Address While I’m Abroad?
Many countries around the world impose strict regulations on their citizens’ internet use. For political reasons, for financial considerations or due to cultural concerns, many countries place embargoes on certain websites. In many cases, this censorship will have little effect on your internet browsing, but in some countries it will throttle your ability to access your favorite sites. Even social networking is restricted in certain countries, making it impossible to connect to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Plurk.
Even if you are spending time in a country as free from restrictions as your own, you might still want to think about obtaining a French IP address while you’re there. You’ll find that certain websites, such as banks and other financial institutions, don’t allow access from other countries. Even when you’re looking for a little home-grown entertainment, you’ll soon discover that television channels that host online streaming services won’t allow you to access their programming unless you have an IP address from France.
How Do I Obtain a French IP Address While I’m Overseas?
Your IP address allows any website you visit to tell exactly where you are; like your own physical postal address, it’s designed to identify your precise location in the world. By obtaining a French IP address, you can make websites believe that you are still at home in France, and a Virtual Private Network is the best way to go about this.
A Virtual Private Network, otherwise known as a VPN, routes all of your internet traffic through a server that’s located in another country – in this case, in France. By doing so, it assigns your computer or mobile device an IP address from France and makes websites believe you are currently located in that country.
There are hundreds of VPN providers available and, though the best ones do ask for a subscription free, it’s a modest monthly amount that will ensure your VPN service is as secure as you could possibly need it to be. It’s simple to set up and easy to use and has the added advantage of keeping your internet browsing absolutely anonymous. It also secures your data by encrypting it, which can come in rather handy if you need to send important work or personal files back to France while you’re abroad.
| Rank | Provider Name | Starting Price | Money Back Guarantee |
Visit Provider Site |
 |
ExpressVPN | $6.67/month | 30 Days |  |
| 2 | IPVanish | $10.00/month | 7 Days | |
| 3 | Hidemyass | $11.52/month | 30 Days | |
| 4 | VyprVPN | $10.00/month | 7 Days | |
| 5 | StrongVPN | $21/ 3 months | 7 Days | |
