The easiest way to learn your computer IP address is by visiting one of the dozens of sites that perform an IP look up on the screen, the best websites will add extra information like browser language, installed plugins, ISP and even show a map with your approximate location in the world, this is the same information a webserver gets when you visit it, it is often used for targeted advertising purposes up to the point that US surfers from the West Coast will be shown different advertisements from those in the East Coast if Google or Bing feel like it.
NetIP.de: You are shown your IP, Hostname, country, region and city, with a big map and a pin indicating your geolocation, they offer a free widget that can be integrated on your website and a toolbar showing your computer IP for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Infosniper.net: Infosniper shows your computer IP, country, region, city and if you don’t like Google Maps, Infosniper can be changed to show your geolocation using Yahoo Maps or Windows Live Maps instead, visiting this website with a VPN shows the ISP/Organization, this is useful to know what company the VPN service has rented its servers from.
InfoSniper find out computer IP address
IP.cc: A quick to type URL to learn your computer IP address, it takes less time to load than a map, it will also let you know your browser language settings which can be used to know your native language even if your are using a proxy, browser language set up is visible by all websites you visit, it can be changed using browser settings, IP.cc also tells you if Java and Javascript are enabled.
NOTE: You might be using a VPN proxy server physically located in for example Germany, and you could notice that some websites detect your computer IP as located somewhere else, like for example the Netherlands, this happens because although the server is located in Germany, the company that owns that server is located in the Netherlands. A web based look up tool will correctly identify your IP geolocation, but advertisers and music or video services might not, as far as they are concerned if the company is Dutch, they will show you Dutch adverts/services believing the company that owns that webserver is your local ISP.
Find your computer IP address in Windows
- Go to the Start button (Windows logo), type the words cmd or command in the search box and click on enter to launch cmd (command line Windows), type netstat -n to see a list of active connections, these are all of your computer Internet activities, your IP is listed under foreign address, the number after the colon (:) is the port number your computer is connecting to, port 80 is for http traffic (web browsing), 21 for FTP, 143 for IMAP, etc.To see more information on what programs are connecting to the IP addresses shown type netstat -nab
How to find your IP address using Windows cmd
- Go to Windows command prompt as explained above and type ipconfig, your computer IP address is listed where it says IPv4 (unless you are using IPv6), if you are using a wireless router you will notice that IPv4 is listed twice, one of them belongs to the Ethernet (wired) connection, and the other to the Wi-fi (wireless) connection, to find out advanced information like your hostname, DNS server and MAC address then type ipconfig /all
NOTE: If you are using a proxy server to connect to the Internet, Windows command prompt will show your real IP and not the VPN or proxy IP you are using, you will still be surfing anonymously on the Internet. You require administrator rights to launch Windows command prompt.
TIP: If you would like to know your network card physical address type getmac -v in Windows command prompt (cmd), this address is not visible to the websites you visit but your Internet Service Provider or Wifi Access Point will see it when you lease an IP from them, it can only be changed using special software (MAC changer).
Find out your IP address with Javascript
You could set up simple find your IP address website on your own webspace, a free webhost can do the trick, all you have to do is to upload a single HTML page with a small Javascript code inserted in between the <head></head> tags,right before the <body>, HTML code placed inside the <head> tags is not visible to visitors, it is used to instruct the browser where to find style sheets or to place scripts.
Javascript code to show IP address
Find out if your IP address Is static or dynamic
Most ISPs will use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to assign you an IP address, the computer IP address will change with each connection/disconnection, the longer you stay disconnected from the Internet, the more chances there are that your former IP address will be given to someone else. A static IP address remains always the same, they are typically used for routers (corporate) and servers that need to have a permanent IP as this is linked to applications and hardware.
The most obvious way to find out if your ISP or network administrator has assigned you a static or dynamic IP address is by asking them, if you are unable to do this another way is by disconnecting your computer from the Internet and see if you are given the same IP address when you reconnect, make sure to allow some time in between disconnections so that the DHCP server can reassign the old IP to a different user if you are in a dynamic IP environment, if nobody else requests an IP from the server while you are disconnected you will be given the same IP address and it will look as if it is a static IP.
ipconfig all Windows command prompt
If you have administrator rights launch Windows command prompt (cmd) and type ipconfig /all you will see a line that says DHCP Enabled indicating Yes or No, if it says yes then you have a dynamic IP address.
You can force a DHCP server to give you a new IP by releasing the connection and typing ipconfig /release which will terminate your Internet connection, after a few minutes type ipconfig /renew to get a new IP.
If you do not have administrator rights, unplug your network cable from the computer, this will disconnect it from the Internet, wait for some minutes, and reconnect the network cable, now you can see if a new IP has been assigned or you keep the old one indicating it is a static IP address.