Frequently asked questions

Your IP address is the public address your internet provider assigns to your connection. Every website, app and game server you connect to sees it, so replies know where to go. To see yours, open the What is my IP address checker: it shows your public IPv4 and IPv6 address, ISP and approximate location instantly. Your computer’s network settings usually show a private address such as 192.168.1.20 instead — that one only works inside your home network.

Your IP location is the approximate place that geolocation databases link to your public IP — usually country, region, city, time zone and coordinates. It’s based on where your ISP registers and routes that block of addresses, not on GPS, so the country is almost always right while the city can be off by 25–100 km. Mobile networks, corporate networks, satellite internet and VPNs often appear somewhere else entirely. You can see your IP location on the globe on the home page.

IP stands for Internet Protocol, the set of rules that addresses and routes data between devices on the internet. An IP address is the number that identifies a device or network under that protocol. Two versions are in use: IPv4, written as four numbers like 203.0.113.42 (about 4.3 billion addresses), and IPv6, written in hexadecimal like 2001:db8::1, with vastly more addresses.

When you open the page, your browser contacts an IP-detection service, which replies with the public address your request came from — your IP as the internet sees it. We then run an IP lookup on that address to add your ISP, ASN, hostname and approximate location. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is stored. To check a different address, use the IP lookup tool — for example, look up 8.8.8.8.

Most home connections use dynamic IPs that can change when your router restarts or its lease expires, and mobile IPs change often. Businesses can request a static IP from their provider.

No. An IP address only reveals an approximate area and your ISP. Only your internet provider can link an IP to a subscriber, and they typically only do so in response to a legal request.

Your internet provider or network doesn’t offer IPv6, or it’s disabled on your router or device. That’s common and doesn’t affect browsing — almost every website still works over IPv4.

A whois IP lookup (often searched as “who is IP lookup”) shows who an IP address is registered to: the organization, the network block it belongs to and the autonomous system (ASN) that routes it. These records are kept by the five regional internet registries — ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC. Our IP lookup tool shows the key whois details — organization, ISP and ASN — together with location and hostname. For full registry records, such as abuse contacts, use the registry’s own whois or RDAP service.

A DNS lookup asks the Domain Name System for a domain’s records — most often to turn a name like example.com into the IP address of its server. Each record type has a job: A and AAAA hold IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, CNAME points to another name, MX routes email, NS lists the domain’s nameservers and TXT holds verification and email-security records such as SPF. Try the DNS lookup tool, for example look up example.com.

A reverse DNS lookup works the other way round: it starts from an IP address and finds the hostname its owner has published for it in a PTR record. For example, a reverse lookup of 8.8.8.8 returns dns.google. Mail servers use reverse DNS to help filter spam, and it can show which company runs an address. Many home connections have no hostname, or a generic one created by the ISP. The IP lookup tool shows the reverse-DNS hostname for every address.

A DNS leak test checks which DNS servers actually answer your browser’s lookups. With a VPN, those lookups should travel through the encrypted tunnel to the VPN’s resolvers. If they reach your internet provider instead, that’s a DNS leak: your ISP can see every site you visit even though your traffic is hidden. Our DNS leak test looks up unique test hostnames and lists every resolver that answered, with its owner and location, so you can spot your ISP in the list.

A good DNS leak test uses unique, random hostnames on every run (so cached answers can’t hide a leak), shows who owns each resolver rather than just its IP, and compares those resolvers with your own network. Our free DNS leak test does all three, runs in your browser with no sign-up, and labels each resolver as your ISP, a public DNS service or another network. Whichever tool you use, run it a few times with your VPN connected — large resolvers use many servers, so results can vary between runs.

Turn on your VPN app’s DNS leak protection, use the VPN’s own DNS servers, disable IPv6 if your VPN doesn’t tunnel it, and remove any custom DNS set on your router or operating system while connected. If your browser uses Secure DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS), it sends lookups to its own provider, so the test will show that provider instead. Then run the DNS leak test again to confirm the fix.

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a technology built into modern browsers that powers video calls, voice chat and file sharing directly between users, without plug-ins. To connect two people, WebRTC discovers your device’s network addresses — and websites can read them with a few lines of JavaScript. That’s why WebRTC can expose your real IP even behind a VPN or proxy. Run the WebRTC leak test to see which addresses your browser reveals.

Yes. The tools are free with no account. Your IP is detected and looked up directly from your browser using public data services; we don’t store your IP or lookup history on any server. Recent lookups are kept only in your browser’s local storage, and you can clear them anytime.

IP detection uses ipify; geolocation and network data come from ipwhois.io (with GeoJS as a fallback); hostnames and DNS records are resolved over DNS-over-HTTPS by Cloudflare (with Google Public DNS as a fallback). The DNS leak test uses the public bash.ws collector, with ipleak.net as a backup.