What is an IP Address?

December 16, 2022December 16, 2022 blogif 217 Views 0 Comments

What is an IP address? In short, an IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is the unique identifier

that computer devices use to recognize each other on the Internet.

Every device connected to the Internet must have an IP address to interact with other devices.

You can think of your IP address as your online mailing address—

it’s how others know where to find you online so that they can send you an email or stream content directly to your device over the Internet.

Table of Contents

IPv4 vs IPv6

An IPv4 address is a 32-bit number assigned to a device using TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

An IPv6 address has 128 bits and its primary benefit over IPv4 talks is that it uses fewer characters than its predecessor, making it easier to enter networking environments.

As of 2018, many ISPs require that customers have both versions enabled to access their services; however, many still function with only one or the other.

How to Find My IP Address on a Computer

While Internet Protocol (IP) addresses can be used to uniquely identify a computer within a network, they aren’t as widely used for that purpose today. Instead, it’s common to use Domain Name System (DNS) queries to find computers within a particular range.

However, in certain situations, you may need to know your computer’s IP address.

You can determine your computer’s IP address in three easy steps:

Find My Device lists for devices connected directly to your Wi-Fi network are available at no cost, but advanced functionality may require Premium access.

How to Find My IP Address on iPhone/iPad

While you’re connected to a network, like your home Wi-Fi or a mobile network provided by your cellular carrier, you are assigned an internet protocol (IP) address.

Your Internet Service Provider assigns that address based on who gets what part of your ISP’s overall capacity for sending data.

So if one of your roommates has YouTube set up and streams music all day long, it may seem like YouTube eats up all of your bandwidth —

but really, it’s just using part of your allocation.

Your internet service provider uses that information to measure how much bandwidth each user consumes per month to determine

whether to raise or lower its rates based on actual activity to meet customer demand.

On smartphones and tablets, however, users cannot view their IP addresses by default.

How to Find My IP Address on Android Phone

All operating systems have a built-in command that allows you to see your IP address.

In Linux, for example, you can type ipconfig in your terminal to get your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address.

On Windows PCs, enter ipconfig into Command Prompt to view your computer’s local and public addresses.

To learn how to find your computer’s information on Mac computers, read below

How to Find My Public IP on Windows 7/8 PC

Finding your public IP address can help diagnose network problems, as well as work around blocked websites.

In addition to blocking outbound ports and traffic to known bad sites, organizations will often block traffic from certain countries

where their web servers are located;

To get around those types of blocks, you’ll need to use a different DNS (Domain Name System) the server that your computer normally uses.

Rather than using your Internet Service Provider’s DNS server (or any other computer on your home network), you can instead use Google’s DNS server by following these steps

How To Find Public Ip On Mac

ipconfig is a utility that retrieves and displays detailed information about every network adapter installed on your system.

This includes things like your machine’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, MAC address, current status, assigned name, and much more.

In Windows, you can use Ipconfig to find both local network addresses as well as public internet addresses.

On a Mac, however, you won’t be able to use Ipconfig for public internet addresses; instead, it’ll display private local addresses only.

Here’s how you can find your public IP in OS X

Hide Your Private & Public Ip On Chrome Browser For Free

Many people have been using private browsing since it was introduced.

It’s a valuable feature if you are browsing sites that you are not supposed to be on while in your office or at school

And don’t want anyone to know that you were there.

However, private browsing isn’t exactly foolproof as every time you start a new private browsing session

your computer gets a brand new IP address. So although no one can track what sites you’ve visited by reading your history, someone could still figure out that

it was you who was surfing porn or gambling websites based on your computer’s public IP address.

If privacy is what you’re looking for then hiding the IP chrome extension could be something that’s worth looking into.

What is the LOOPBACK address?

The loopback address is an IPv4-specific term that refers to a non-routable address used for troubleshooting and testing purposes.

it can be assigned to a network interface on almost any operating system however unlike other non-routable addresses.

The loopback address has only one function:

It allows a host to send packets to itself without having them forwarded through another device such as a router.

This makes it useful for debugging purposes—if you’ve ever tried to ping 127.0.0.1, you’ve used loopback networking!

What are the different IP addresses classes and give each class’s range?

IP addresses come in many varieties. They’re classified into several different classes, each of which has a range of addresses that fall under them.

Class A network has 1-126 (0 and 127 are reserved) addresses; class B network can have 128-191 and so on until you get to class E, which has 254 available IPs.

The exact number of available addresses depends on how large your company or institution is.

For example, if you are using a 10/8 prefix for all your hosts, as most companies do, then there are 16 million possible hosts in your network;

that sounds like a lot but considering how many devices we connect these days, it’s not very much at all.

What PING is the used protocol?

The Internet Protocol (IP) determines what happens to a message once it reaches a host computer on the internetwork.

IP as part of network diagnostics used ICMP or internet control message protocol.

ICMP uses echo requests and echoes reply messages to test whether your network has properly installed IPv4 addresses on all hosts. You can also use ICMP to determine if a host is reachable and functioning by sending either a message too big for its small buffer or one that contains errors in order to see how large packets are handled.