What Is Your IP Address? How To Keep It Private
Any website you visit can see you IP address, with even the most basic tracking measures. Read on to learn what an IP address does, how it works, and how you can hide or mask it if you want to.
What is an IP Address?
IP address is short for Internet Protocol address. IT is a unique address that works to identify devices including computers, tablets and smartphones, on a network. There are public and private IP addresses, and each type serves a different purpose.
Public IP addresses let devices interact with web (or mail) servers. To avoid confusion in IPs, addresses are publicly registered with the Network Information Center (NIC). Private IP addresses aren’t registered, instead the NIC reserves certain address blocks for private use.
Example:
- Starting IP Address: 172.16.0.0
- Ending IP Address: 172.31.255.255
Private IP addresses are for identifying a single device within a network or organization. For example, someone might assign a private IP address to a printer to allow people on a certain network to print to the printer, while preventing people outside the network from doing so.
