Every device on the internet or a local network has an IP address. It’s the digital world’s equivalent of a mailing address, and it helps send data over networks in packets instead of using traditional, lag-intensive modes of communication.

Unlike a home address, which is always a fixed location, an IP address is just an estimate of your geographical location. It will never reveal your exact location like a home address would, but it can help an attacker determine where you’re at any given time.

Most of the time, you can find out your IP address by opening up the network settings on your device or router. Your home router will show you your public IP address, but you can also look at the status of any of your network adapters — including those used by VPNs and virtual machines.

You can also use the DHCP feature on your router to change your IP address how to login 192.168.100.1 automatically or to manually assign one to a specific device. In addition, most devices have a private IP address that is assigned to them by the router as well.

IP addresses are created automatically by an organization called IANA, a part of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Your router uses IANA’s algorithm to allocate an IP address to each device that connects to your network, which can be done in two different ways: dynamically or statically.

The difference between a dynamic and static IP address is that dynamic IP addresses change all the time, while static IP addresses are set and cannot be changed. Dynamic IP addresses are the most common, but you can also use static addresses if you prefer not to let your router update them for you.

In addition to finding out your IP address, you can check what version of the operating system is on your computer or mobile device. The most popular versions of macOS, Windows, and Android all include a tool that will tell you which version of the OS you’re running.

Your IP address is usually displayed in the bottom-right corner of your taskbar if you’re running Windows or in the bottom-left if you’re running macOS, as you can see below. For other operating systems, open the task manager and click on the Performance tab.

Another easy way to see your IP address is through your network’s Settings window, which is usually accessed by pressing Control+R on your keyboard. This opens a menu of options that can be sorted by network type, and you can see the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for each.

IPv4 is the older of the two standards, and its successor, IPv6, was introduced in 1999. It has a larger address space than its predecessor, and it accounts for new devices that weren’t able to fit into the older standard.

IPv4 uses 32-bit binary numbers to create a unique address, which is written in four sets of eight-digit hexadecimal numbers separated by colons. These numbers range from 0 to 255.