What is my PC IP Address Information?

Your Public IP Address is: 18.226.214.91

Your User Agent is: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
The Browser you are using is: Mozilla 0.0
It appears that you are located in: United States
                  

What is an IP address?                                                   

IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique number assigned to every device connected to the Internet.  It is a series of four numbers separated by periods.  Also known as a dotted-quad, it looks like 192.23.5.66

The numbers that make an IP address can show the user's location because these numbers are assigned to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as region-based blocks.  So a computer connecting to the Internet can be identified as being situated in a particular country or region with the help of its IP address.

Computers function and deal with numbers but its difficult for people to remember a long series of digits.  To avoid the cumbersome process of having to memorize IP addresses, they are assigned Host names that are much easier to keep in mind.  Hostnames and IP addresses can be used inter-changeably and one can be used to find the other.

Initially, ISPs issued one IP address per user which was called a static IP address.  But internet usage is increasing rapidly and IP addresses are limited.  So ISPs have now resorted to issuing dynamic IP addresses out of a pool of IP addresses (Using DHCP).  Using a dynamic IP address limit the users ability to host websites, ftp servers, mail servers etc.  A single computer with a static IP address can host multiple machines with dynamic IP addresses.

You or anyone, whom you allow, needs to know your IP address to access various services on your machine like servers (Web, Mail and FTP) remote access utilities and games.

What is a Proxy Server?

A proxy server is a computer that accepts request from clients to make a connection to the Internet or provide a file or other resources available on different servers.  The clients cannot connect directly and make a request to a proxy server which in turn provides the resources by establishing network connections.  If you use a proxy server to access network services, your identity is not revealed thus making you anonymous since your IP address is not shown.

Individual users and even governments at times use such indirect connections to networks to avoid detection of their location, identity etc.  The demand for maintaining secrecy is such that numerous software packages that conceal IP addresses by using proxy servers have flooded the market.  Examples of them being: NetConceal, Stealth Surf, Hide IP etc.

Whenever you visit a website using a proxy server, your real IP address would not be shown.  The IP address of the proxy server is what will be seen, making you a totally anonymous user.
 


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