The address a website sees
Your public IP address is the number that identifies your connection to the sites you open. When you load a page, the site needs somewhere to send the reply, and the address on the request is where it goes. That is also the answer to "show my IP": any lookup page just reads that field back to you.
It is assigned to you by your internet provider, usually changes over time, and often is shared by many customers at once. It is not the address inside your home network, which the router hands to each device.
What an address can and cannot tell
- Your provider and a rough region, taken from public registration data.
- Not your name, street or phone number; a site has no such record from the address alone.
- Not always the right city. Lookup pages often show the provider's hub, not your town.
- Two versions exist: IPv4, written as four numbers, and IPv6, written in longer groups; a check should show both if you have both.
What changes with a proxy
A proxy passes your request on to a site and the site sees the proxy's address. For the web request that goes through it, your own address stays out of view. The proxy, though, sees your address and any unencrypted parts of the request, so you swap whom you trust and you do not remove the trust.
What stays untouched is whatever never went through the proxy: a DNS question that your device sent the normal way, a browser feature that reveals an address by itself, an app that ignores the proxy setting. This is why one lookup page showing a new address is a start, not a finish.
A one-minute test
Open an IP lookup page on your normal connection and write down the address and provider.
Turn on the service and reload the page in the same browser.
Check that the address, provider and region changed. On this service the exit should be one of five places: Germany, Austria, Czechia, Singapore or South Korea.
If you have IPv6, check that the lookup does not still show your home IPv6 address.
Open a DNS leak test next, since the address alone does not cover it.
Why the location is sometimes wrong
IP-to-location data comes from registries and guesses by data vendors. A server in Prague can show up as a nearby city, and a mobile address can show where your operator's gateway is. Different lookup pages can disagree for that reason, and none of them is a map of your door. Treat the country as likely and the city as rough.
Do not expect an Indian address from us. The service has no servers in India, so no lookup will show one.
When you actually need to know it
You might want your address to allow a remote desktop, to give to a support team, to pick the right server, or just to see what a site sees. For remote access, the public address is only half the picture, as your router may also need a rule to pass the connection in.
A tunnel on the device means the public address shown is that of the server, so if you check from inside it, you are reading the server's, not your home one. Switch the service off first when you want your home address.
Call log
01Why does my address shift without me doing anything?
Providers often hand out addresses that rotate. A reboot of the router or a long idle time can trigger a new one.
02Does my IP address double as my adapter's MAC address?
No. The public address is on the internet side; the MAC address belongs to your network adapter and never leaves your local network.
03Does my IP point to my street?
An address by itself does not give them a name. They can see a region and a provider; matching it to a person needs a request to the provider.
04Does a proxy hide my IP from the proxy owner?
No. The proxy sees where the request came from. Only the sites behind it see its address instead.
05Why do two lookup pages show different cities?
They use different data sources and their own estimates, so a city can differ by a long way.
06Does the service show my real IP anywhere?
You can check this yourself: run the lookup with it on, and also test DNS and WebRTC. The service keeps no logs, which is a statement and not something a lookup could prove either way.