What Is My IP Address?

Still have questions? That’s something we can fix! 💡 Here are some of the most important things about IP addresses you need to understand:

What Exactly Is an IP Address?

IP (short for “Internet Protocol”) is a unique identifier assigned to every device that connects directly to a network (in this case, the Internet). It acts as a sort of “personal address” for each participant on the network.

There are two major IP formats, the Version 4 (IPv4) and the Version 6 (IPv6). The first one consists of four numbers separated by points, such as 63.123.34.235.

The more advanced IPv6 is longer and uses both number and letters, which looks like this: 2015:ba7:0:1267:0:363:8:2.

Even though most of its available addresses have already been used up by the World Wide Web, IPv4 is still much more widely used today than IPv6 – that’s why our tool focuses specifically on this format of IP.

What Are Private and Public IPs?

Ever wondered how your computer actually connects to the Internet? Turns out, there are many complex components involved in this seemingly mundane process.

First, there is the router, which either creates a Wi-Fi signal for your computer or has a slot for using a cable. The router sends your signal to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Simplifying a bit,

your public IP is the unique IP address from the public (Internet-wide) pool of addresses that is assigned to your router by your Internet Service Provider.

A private IP address is assigned inside a local network, such as a the one created by a Wi-Fi router. This address cannot be used to identify your computer on the Internet.

To put it all together:

Each device connected to the same Wi-Fi network will have a unique private IP but the same public IP (because they are all using the same router to connect to the Internet).

You might have guessed by now that our tool only displays your public IP address, because it’s impossible for an outside observer to detect your device’s private IP 🕵️‍♀️

“Where” Is My IP Location?

As you remember from the previous question, you obtain your public IP from your Internet Service Provider. This IP is taken from a block of addresses which are in turn assigned to the provider by the international organizations which manage the global IP address pool.

It is therefore possible to deduce your approximate physical location given your public IP address.

This is done by scanning special tables which match IP blocks with Internet Service Providers. Such tables are frequently updated, but there’s still a chance of an outdated or false result.

As a consequence, your detected IP location will be pretty close to your physical whereabouts in most of the cases – but sometimes it might be a little off due to the nature of the method used for its detection.

Our tool uses the best available databases to detect IP location, but if your particular result is not 100% accurate just remember that the Internet is a constantly evolving structure that is sometimes too fast to follow precisely :)

Can I Change/Hide My IP Address?

But of course! There are many ways you can manipulate your public IP address to improve privacy and security of your internet connection.

The most popular and easy method is to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network):

A VPN is a specialized piece of software (so basically an app) that creates a secure “tunnel” between your device and the Web, using powerful specialized computers called servers.

By the way, our tool can detect if you are using a proxy (that is, an intermediary such as a VPN) to alter your public IP. Of course, the tool cannot guess your real IP in this case 🤷 – only the one provided by the proxy.