What is an IP Address?

Your home has not only a street address but also an IP (Internet Protocol) address. An IP address is a unique number your ISP assigns to your router. The router, in turn, gives an IP address to each internet-capable device in your home - phones, PCs, consoles, smart appliances, etc. - when they go online.

If you suppose that your internet connection doesn’t work properly, you can do a ping test. It is made with the means of the OS you use: Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android. Go on reading to learn more on how to ping your IP address.

Why do you need an IP address

All devices must have a public IP address to use the internet. It allows your device to find the recipient of internet communications and exchange information with it. It’s pretty similar to your real-life address in that way. For instance, if you’re subscribed to a magazine, it would need your address to send you your copies.

The same logic applies to your IP address and the internet. Without an IP, your device would not be able to find the other one (e.g. site’s server), and the latter wouldn’t know where to send the information you request.

What are public and private IP addresses

The main difference between a public IP address and a private one is that the former is used to identify your devices on the internet, whereas the latter - on private networks. Private IP addresses identify devices like computers and printers that aren’t directly connected to the internet and share information among them.

Each device in your private network has a unique private IP address. This allows it to communicate with other devices in that network without being visible to or establishing a connection with anything outside of the local network.

What is IP Leak and Why Get an IP Leak Test

How secure are your web traffic and private data? Much of your privacy online is associated with your IP address. If it falls into wrong hands, your IP address will reveal all sorts of personal information about you to hackers, leading to your complete deanonymization. Knowing your IP location, criminals can monitor your activities and habits and create a detailed profile on you.

What’s worse, your IP address is not that difficult to find out. It’s often transmitted to the internet unprotected along with the rest of your web traffic. That’s why so many security-aware users turn to virtual private networks (VPNs) like VPN Unlimited to get a virtual IP address and mask their real location. And seeing how pivotal your IP is for your privacy and anonymity, it's worth confirming that your VPN is actually doing its job and your real IP location stays hidden.

That’s why it’s a good idea to get our IP leak test. Here’s how it works: after you click the big blue button above, our software will display your current IP address as is seen on the internet. Check it - if you see your real IP address and location, then your VPN is leaking your IP to the web. If you see your VPN server’s IP address and location, then all is fine and you’re anonymous.

How to Protect Your Device from IP Leaks

All you need to do to prevent IP leaks is mask your real IP address. The best way to do this is to connect to a VPN server. This will change your public IP address to that of the server, keeping your location, online activities, and identity private and anonymous. As icing on the cake, getting an IP address of a different country grants you access to any content available there, allowing you to bypass geo-blocking and content censorship.

Go on, try it out right now! Here’s how easy it is to protect your device from leaking your IP address out into the internet:

Download VPN Unlimited
Launch the VPN Unlimited app
Create a new KeepSolid ID (a universal login to access all KeepSolid products), or sign in using your existing KeepSolid ID
If it’s your first time using VPN Unlimited, you will automatically get 7 days of subscription for free (no CC required). Otherwise, check out our subscription options
Once logged in, click the Start button to connect to an optimal server, or choose a server you like from the list below it
Run the IP Leak Test on this page again. The IP section of test results should now display the VPN server’s IP address, and the Country section - the country where the server is located

Why IP Leaks are Dangerous

An IP leak can reveal all sorts of personal information about you:

Your city
Your country
Your state/province
Your ZIP/postal code

At first glimpse, this may seem like not-so critical information to leak. However, on the internet, it’s easy to combine this data with other bits of your info scattered here and there. Whenever you visit a website or service, it can tie your IP address location with other information:

Cookies
Metadata
Browser-fingerprinting tactics
Trackers

This allows website owners, advertisers, marketers, and cyber-criminals to build a thorough profile on you. They can then piece together your location, interests, hobbies, websites you’re visiting, people you’re talking to, stuff you're downloading. This information is then utilized to cash in on you - via either innocent means like targeted content and ads or selling your data to the highest bidder.

IP leaks and internet service providers (ISPs)

There’s a party that has access to even more of your personal information - your ISP. They know your name, phone number, physical address, credit card number, credit history, bank account details, etc. They can even censor, redirect, or even block your web activity based on your IP address.

But wait, there’s more! In some countries, ISPs are legally obliged to collect logs of your internet activity and provide them to all sorts of government agencies, no warrant required. This is somewhat mitigated if you’re browsing HTTPS-secured websites - then ISP can only monitor the domains you’re visiting. But if you’re browsing HTTP websites, your ISP can see all the webpages you’re visiting and what you’re doing there.

Other Types of Privacy Leaks

DNS Leak Test

DNS (domain name system) turns domain names into IP addresses. Your browser reaches a DNS server that retrieves the IP address of an URL you’ve entered and sends it back. Under usual circumstances, if you’re not using a VPN, DNS requests are sent directly to your ISP’s DNS servers. This means that the ISP, and anyone intercepting your traffic, can see all the services and sites you connect to.

That in itself is a potential DNS leak. But even when using a VPN, which is normally enough to protect your DNS information thanks to traffic encryption, a leak is still possible. In certain situations, DNS requests may still be sent to an ISP’s server unprotected. A VPN can’t protect your DNS queries in such cases, resulting in a DNS leak.

Check if your DNS is leaking.

WebRTC Leak Test

WebRTC technology allows browsers to establish direct P2P connections within a web page, improving and streamlining browser-to-browser communication. WebRTC is quite convenient, so many modern browsers are developed complete with it. However, since this technology doesn’t require your consent, it can be abused to leak your real IP address. Even using a VPN app can’t protect you from that.

That’s what is called a WebRTC leak. Don’t you worry though, as there are still ways to prevent them. First, you can disable WebRTC in your browser. Or, perhaps even more convenient, you can use the WebRTC Leak Prevent option in the VPN Unlimited browser extension.

Check if your WebRTC is leaking.

Sometimes, when the web page is not loaded, the reason of an unstable connection can be caused by technical works on the side of a service provider. To learn if this is true you can do a ping test. Let’s figure out what is ping test and how to ping the necessary services.

How To Ping an IP Address from Desktop Platforms

Nowadays, when the internet is an essential part of our daily routine we have to be sure that the internet connection works properly. The safest way to ensure that you don’t have connection issues is to do a ping test. You can ping your IP address on mobile and desktop platforms. Let’s figure out how to do this on Windows and Mac.

How to ping an IP address in Windows

Doing a ping test in Windows is fairly easy on any release version. You need to open the Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell and type in the necessary command. You can follow this brief instruction:

Type “command prompt” in the search field on the Windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose Command Prompt application.
Type in “ping google.com” and press Enter. You can ping any website or service to learn if it works correctly.
You can also test the connection between your computer and your home router. Type in “ping 192.168.1.1” and press Enter.
Once you start the ping test, your computer will transmit 4 data packets to the host and will wait for a response. Once the responses to your pings arrive, the results of the ping test will be displayed in the Command Prompt window.

How to ping an IP address from a Mac

The process of the ping test on Mac is similar to Windows. Just use the Terminal app to insert text commands.

Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities on your Mac.
Start the Terminal app and insert the ping command: “ping 192.168.1.1” and press Enter.
This ping test between your PC and your router will start.
To finish the test, press the Command + C combination on your keyboard.

Note: Instead of pinging your IP address, you can also check the connection status of any service. To ping it, type the domain name, like “google.com,” or any other valid domain.

When the ping test is complete, you will see the results. You’ll see the number of packets sent and the time it took to get a response from the desired server. You will also learn if the packets are lost during the ping test.

IP Address Leak Test