What your public IP address actually is
Every device on the internet needs an address so data knows where to go. The number shown above is your public IP address — the one your internet service provider (ISP) assigns to your connection and the only address the wider internet ever sees. Every device in your home or office usually shares this single public address, because your router uses a technique called NAT (Network Address Translation) to map many internal devices onto it.
That public address is different from your private (local) IP — something like 192.168.1.50 or 10.0.0.4 — which only has meaning inside your own network and can't be reached directly from the internet. A website you visit sees your public IP; it never sees your private one.
IPv4 vs. IPv6 — why you may see two
There are two versions of the Internet Protocol in active use, and many modern connections run both at once (this is called dual-stack).
IPv4
The original and still most common format. It's a 32-bit address written as four numbers from 0–255, like 203.0.113.42. That design allows roughly 4.3 billion unique addresses — which sounded enormous in the 1980s but has long since run out. NAT and address recycling are what keep IPv4 working today.
IPv6
The long-term successor, built to solve that exhaustion problem. It's a 128-bit address written as eight groups of hexadecimal digits, like 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334 (long runs of zeros can be collapsed to ::). The address space is so vast — about 340 undecillion addresses — that every device on Earth could have billions of its own. Adoption keeps climbing, but it's gradual, which is why dual-stack is so common.
What your IP reveals — and what it doesn't
An IP address is less private than people fear, but also less revealing than they imagine. From the address alone, a website or service can reasonably determine:
- Your ISP or organization — the network that owns the address block.
- Your ASN — the Autonomous System Number identifying that network operator on the global routing table.
- An approximate location — usually accurate to your city or region, derived from where your ISP allocates addresses. It is an estimate, not a fix; it's frequently off by a city and occasionally by a lot.
What it does not directly expose is your name, your street address, your specific device, or what you're browsing. Mapping an IP to a real identity generally requires records held by the ISP, which they release only under legal process.
Changing or hiding your IP
If you'd rather not present your real address, a VPN or proxy routes your traffic through an intermediary server, so sites see that server's IP and location instead of yours. Refresh this page while connected to a VPN and you'll watch the numbers above change. Restarting your router can also change a dynamic IPv4 address, though many home connections keep the same one for long stretches.