Your external or public IP is a unique address that identifies you and your online actions. It can be used for things like sending your local advertisements or preventing (or allowing) specific content through your ISP. Your external IP address can provide information to others, such as your location and internet service provider. It’s also attached to emails you send, instant messages, and anything else that goes outside your network unless you use a VPN to hide it. The external IP address is visible to the outside world and is seen by every site you visit. Your home network probably has a wireless router, and the connection or address that router uses to connect to the internet is the external IP address. External or Public IP AddressesĪn external or public IP is the one that the network uses to connect to the outside world or the internet. These IP addresses, for the most part, are only visible inside your home network. This category can be separated further into wireless and wired connections.

The connection can be to a laptop, desktop computer, printer, phone, etc. Each connection to a device inside a network has its own address. Internal or local IPs are assigned within a network (like the one your router manages in your home). We will be using different methods to find each of them so let’s quickly go over the difference between the two. There are internal (or local) and external (or public) addresses. What is the difference between an IP address and a MAC address?įor our discussion here, there are really two types of IP addresses that we need to worry about.

Finding the External or Public IP address using Google.Finding Internal or Local IP Addresses on your Desktop.

How to find ip address and mac address