The ten second answer
Type what is my IP into any search engine and a number appears. That number is your public address, lent to your connection by your internet provider. It is the return address on everything you request online, so every site you open receives it. It is not secret and it is not dangerous on its own.
What people actually want to know is what my IP gives away. The answer fits in four lines, and a lookup page shows all four.
The four lines on a lookup page
- Address: the number itself. Four groups of digits for IPv4, a long string with colons for IPv6. You may have both.
- ISP: the company that owns the address. This is what a search for what is my IP ISP returns. It is your provider, or a hosting company when a VPN is on.
- Location: a country, a region and a city. The city is an estimate and is often wrong.
- Connection type: home broadband, mobile, business or data centre.
Who my IP belongs to
Not to you. If you look up who my IP is registered to, you will find your provider's name, because providers own blocks of addresses and lend them out. At home, every device behind your router shares one public address. On mobile data you may share one with hundreds of strangers. That is why an address identifies a connection and never a person.
Only the provider can match an address to a customer at a given moment, and it does that for courts and police, not for curious websites.
Where is my IP, and why is my IP in the wrong city
Lookup databases record where a provider registered its addresses, which is usually a regional office or a network hub. So the answer to where is my IP can be a city you have never visited. Mobile carriers make it worse, because they send a whole region's traffic through a few gateways.
Why is my IP different today? Home and mobile addresses are handed out from a pool. A router restart or a switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data gives you a new one. Nothing is broken.
Did the key change it? Check in three steps
Look up your IP with the key switched off. Note the ISP and the city.
Connect, pick a location such as Dallas, and look it up again.
The ISP should now be a hosting company and the city should match the location. If both lines are unchanged, the tunnel is not running or your browser is bypassing it.
Keep in mind
- A new IP does not log you out of anything. Sites you are signed in to still know you.
- Cookies and browser fingerprints identify you better than any address.
- Scary banners that shout your IP at you are adverts. Every site already has that number.
- Valideo keeps no record of the address you connect from.
- The five free days are enough to run this check on every device you own.
Q.What is my IP used for?
A.Sites need it to send pages back to you. Many also use it to guess your country for language, prices and licensing.
Q.Can someone find me with my IP?
A.Not beyond a rough area. Linking an address to a person takes the provider's records and a legal order.
Q.Why do I see two different addresses?
A.One is IPv4 and one is IPv6. Many providers run both, and sites use whichever they support.
Q.Does my IP change when I use a VPN?
A.Yes. Sites see the VPN server's address. Your own is visible only to that server.
Q.Is hiding my IP legal?
A.Yes. In the United States a VPN is a normal security tool used by companies and individuals.
Q.Do I get the same VPN address every time?
A.Usually not. Server addresses are shared among users, which is better for privacy.