What is an IP address?
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is the number that identifies your connection on the internet, the same way a postal address identifies your house. When you open a website, your browser sends a request from your IP and the server sends the page back to it. Without an IP address no data could find its way to you.
The address shown at the top of this page is your public IP — the one assigned by your internet service provider (ISP) and visible to every site you visit. Devices inside your home use separate private addresses (like 192.168.1.20) that your router translates to that single public address.
IPv4 vs IPv6
IPv4 addresses are four numbers separated by dots, for example 203.0.113.42. There are only about 4.3 billion of them, which is why ISPs share one public IPv4 among many customers. IPv6 addresses, such as 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334, solve the shortage with 340 undecillion possible addresses. Many connections now have both, and websites may reach you over either one. If your IPv6 line above shows an address while you are on a VPN, your VPN is not tunnelling IPv6 — a common leak. Read more in our IPv4 vs IPv6 guide.
What your IP address reveals
- Your ISP and network (ASN) — always accurate, because address blocks are publicly registered to the organisations that use them.
- Your approximate location — country is reliable; city is an estimate based on where the ISP routes that block. It is commonly within 25–50 km for home broadband and much less accurate for mobile data, satellite and corporate VPNs.
- Connection type — residential, mobile, hosting/data centre, or a known VPN/proxy range. Streaming and banking sites use this to block data-centre IPs.
- Not your name, street address, or browsing history. Those require your ISP's records or tracking cookies, not the IP itself.
For a plain-English breakdown of the real risks, see what someone can actually do with your IP address.
Why the location may be wrong
Geolocation databases like the ones we use (DB-IP, ipinfo) map address ranges to places by combining ISP registrations, routing data and latency measurements. They are updated monthly, but ISPs move blocks between cities, mobile carriers route traffic through central gateways, and VPNs deliberately place you elsewhere. If the city above is off, that is a limitation of IP geolocation itself, not a sign that your connection is compromised.
Static vs dynamic IP addresses
Most home and mobile connections receive a dynamic address from a pool; it can change when your router reconnects or the lease expires. Business plans and servers use static addresses that never change. If you need to reach a device at home (camera, NAS, game server) you either need a static IP or a dynamic DNS service that tracks your changing address.
How to hide or change your IP address
Restarting your router often gives you a new dynamic address. To hide your address from the sites you visit, route traffic through an intermediary so they see its IP instead of yours:
- VPN — encrypts everything from your device to the VPN server; the easiest option for phones and laptops. See how to hide your IP address and how to check that your VPN is actually working.
- Tor Browser — free, strong anonymity for browsing, but slow and blocked by some sites.
- Proxy — per-application, no encryption; fine for changing region in one browser, not for privacy.
Whatever you choose, reload this page afterwards and run the leak test. The most common failures are WebRTC exposing your real IP inside the browser, DNS requests bypassing the tunnel, and IPv6 traffic not being tunnelled at all.
If you decide you want a VPN, these are the providers we currently link to. They are affiliate links — we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you — and none of them influence what our tools report.