There is a high chance that you have seen something like: 103.98.5.245 this is an IP address
Every time you open a website, launch your computer, stream a video, or send an email, your device is communicating with servers(IP Addresses) across the globe.
Think of IP addresses as a digital address book for the internet and how all the devices in the world communicate with each other!
Without an IP address your device cannot communicate with the world or network. Because IP address is how computers send data to each other. Think of it like having a car but no engine to drive it.
What Is An IP Address
Let’s start from the basics, what is an IP Address? IP Address stands for internet protocol and it’s responsible on how everything works and how devices communicate with each other.
For example, when you access the website from your computer. You are accessing the website from your IP address and fetching data/images/content from that server via IP address
(There is also something called DNS – Domain Name System involved which just translates IP addresses to Website Names, like -> “Google.com = 8.8.8.8” )
Without DNS we would have to write IP addresses by hand, as you may think… This would make internet insufferable
2. How IP Addresses Look
There are two main versions of IP addresses in use today:
IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)
- Format: Four decimal numbers (0–255) separated by dots.
Example: 192.168.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 (Google’s public DNS) - Total possible addresses: About 4.3 billion.
- Status: Running out—exhausted in many regions, leading to the rise of IPv6
IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6)
- Format: Eight groups of hexadecimal numbers separated by colons.
Example: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 - Total possible addresses: Approximately 340 undecillion.
- Status: Gradually replacing IPv4 as the internet grows.
3. Your Router / Modem
You know when you setup your router and you want to change something, you have to go to: http://192.168.1.1 or other similar address in the browser? That is an IP address of your router or also known as Default Gateway.
This IP address is crucial, as we can do a lot of things with this IP address
Note: This IP address cannot be accessed from outside of your network due to this being a Private IP Address, to keep things simple we will not get into detail
Also, outside or inside of your network, you can also connect to devices (FTP, SSH, Telnet or other protocols allow you to remotely access files/device) and remotely control them or use them.