Skype Will Now Hide Your IP Address By Default

While it's difficult to maintain anonymity online, there are certain things you can do to make sure that the people you interact with can't trace your computer. Namely, you don't want anything revealing your IP address. With that information, someone can do some nasty things, like flood your connection with requests, so that you can't get anything done online. Well Microsoft is finally taking a step that it should have taken long ago, to prevent this sort of thing.

One little-known feature of Skype is that it loves to broadcast your IP address. If you're chatting with someone, it doesn't take much work to find out that information. Which, as I stated above, can be used to do harmful things. Despite this being an obvious flaw, the company hasn't done much to change this, since it purchased Skype back in 2011.

Not long ago, Microsoft did add in the ability to hide one's IP address. But it was a rather quiet update, and was not turned on by default. As such, few even knew that they could take advantage of the feature. Well, in the latest update for Skype, this feature will automatically be turned on for everyone.

They announced this as a feature targeting gamers, which I suppose is probably the right audience. As disgruntled gamers are among the most likely to seek out petty online revenge through an IP address. However, the feature is a welcome one for gamers and non-gamers alike.