What's My IP Address & Location?

Most modern connections run IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time, an arrangement called dual stack. Having two addresses is normal and there’s nothing to fix.

Your device uses whichever protocol the website you’re visiting supports.

If you’re not using a VPN, you can stop reading here. The rest of this section is about what happens when a VPN only protects one of the two addresses.

IPv4 & IPv6 Location Mismatch

If you’re connected to a VPN and you’re seeing conflicting IPv4 and IPv6 location data, your VPN isn’t tunneling IPv6 properly.

What that means is that your real IPv6 address and location are still exposed. Any website or app that supports IPv6 will see straight past your VPN.

This is more common than it should be, and it’s one of the things we check for in every VPN we review.

How to Fix It

There are two options inside your VPN app to fix an IPv6 leak, and good VPNs have at least one:

1. Turn on IPv6 leak protection, sometimes labelled IPv6 blocking.
2. Enable full IPv6 support, if the VPN service actually offers it.

If your VPN has neither, you can disable IPv6 in your device’s network settings instead. Your connection will keep working perfectly well on IPv4 alone.

Learn how to do this on each platform in our guide to fixing IP leaks.

If you have both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address, IPv6 is usually the one your device prefers, so blocking it will stop the leak.

Run a VPN leak test to check for DNS and WebRTC leaks at the same time.

You have a few options to hide your IP address, but each one works in different ways.

Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A VPN routes your traffic through a remote server and encrypts it on the way. Websites and apps see the server’s address instead of yours, and your ISP can see that you’re connected to a VPN but not what you’re doing.

This is the most practical option for most people, because it covers everything on your device rather than one app, and it lets you choose which country you appear to be in.

There are caveats, though. A VPN doesn’t make you anonymous and you’re moving your trust from your ISP to the VPN service, so its logging policy and whether it’s been independently audited are key things to check.

Free VPNs in particular have a poor record, and our research has repeatedly found apps that leak data, embed trackers, or log the activity they claim not to. Our VPN rankings are based on our own testing rather than provider claims.

A VPN also won’t hide you if you’re logged into an account: Google or Facebook know it’s you whether or not your IP address has changed.

Use a Proxy

A web proxy swaps your IP address but doesn’t encrypt your connection. You usually set it up per application, often in a web browser, so anything outside the web application still uses your real IP address.

Proxies are lighter than VPNs, and often faster, which makes them fine for casually getting around a regional block.

They’re a bad choice for your online privacy, though. Your traffic isn’t encrypted, and free public proxies are often run by people you’d rather not hand your traffic data to.

Use Tor

Tor bounces your traffic through three volunteer-run servers, also known as nodes, and no single server knows both who you are and where you’re going. It’s the strongest option available for hiding your address, and it’s free.

The trade-off is that Tor is very slow. Streaming and large downloads are impractical, and some websites block traffic from known Tor exit nodes outright.

If you don’t want your ISP to know that you’re using the Tor browser, you can use a VPN and Tor together.

Your devices also have private IP addresses, which only exist inside your own home network. Those are the ones starting 192.168. or 10., and no external website ever sees them.

Your private IP identifies a single device on your own network. You’ll need it for things like setting up a printer, forwarding a port, or pointing one device at another.

Here’s where to find your private IP address:

Why Is My IP Location Wrong?

IP geolocation works from network routing records rather than GPS, so it shows where your ISP routes your traffic: often a regional hub in a different city. Country level results are reliable, city level is a rough guess, and mobile or business connections tend to be even less accurate.

Why Does My IP Address Keep Changing?

Most home connections use dynamic addressing, so your ISP reassigns addresses periodically instead of fixing yours permanently. Restarting your router, an ISP network refresh, or joining a different network will each change it.

Is My IP Address the Same on All My Devices?

Every device on your network shares one public IP address, but each has its own private IP. On phones and tablets, when you switch to cellular data, your device leaves the Wi-Fi network and gets a different public address from your carrier.

Can Someone Hack Me if They Know My IP Address?

Not on its own. Your router drops unsolicited incoming connections by default, so there’s nothing exposed to connect to. The realistic risks are that people can see roughly where you are, and gamers can occasionally get hit with DDoS attacks. Any port you’ve deliberately opened is the exception and needs securing properly.

Can Someone Find My Home Address from My IP?

No. An IP address points to the network that owns it, not to a building. An IP lookup gives a general area at best, not a precise location. Your ISP holds the record linking the address to your account, and that only comes out through a court order or security breach.