Frequently Asked Questions
Plain-English answers to common questions about IP addresses, VPNs, DNS, privacy, and network security.
IP Address
What Is My IP Address?
Your IP address is a unique number assigned to your internet connection. Every device online has one, and websites use it to send data back to you.
What Does My IP Address Reveal?
Your IP address reveals your ISP, approximate city, and whether you use a VPN or proxy. It does not reveal your name or exact address.
Is My IP Address Static or Dynamic?
Most home internet connections use dynamic IPs that change periodically. Businesses often pay for static IPs that stay the same.
What Is IPv4 vs IPv6?
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses (e.g., 203.0.113.1) while IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses to solve the shortage of IPv4 space. Both are widely used today.
What Is Geolocation?
Geolocation is the process of determining a device's real-world location using IP address data, GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower signals. Each method has different accuracy.
How Are IP Addresses Allocated?
IP addresses are allocated through a hierarchical system: IANA distributes large blocks to five regional registries (RIRs), which assign smaller blocks to ISPs and organizations, who then assign individual addresses to devices.
VPN
How Does a VPN Work?
A VPN encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a server in another location, hiding your real IP address from websites and your ISP.
Does a VPN Hide Your IP Address?
Yes, a properly configured VPN replaces your real IP with the VPN server's IP. However, DNS leaks and WebRTC can expose your real IP even with a VPN active.
What Is a VPN Leak?
A VPN leak happens when your real IP address or DNS queries escape the encrypted tunnel and become visible to websites or your ISP, defeating the purpose of the VPN.
How to Test If Your VPN Is Working
Run a VPN leak test to confirm your real IP is hidden, DNS queries are tunneled, and WebRTC is not exposing your local IP.
Free VPN vs Paid VPN: What Is the Difference?
Free VPNs often log and sell your data, cap your speed, and limit servers. A paid VPN from a reputable provider offers better privacy, speed, and reliability.
What Is VPN Split Tunneling?
Split tunneling lets you choose which apps or sites use the VPN tunnel and which connect directly. It gives you flexibility to balance privacy and speed.
What Is a DNS Leak?
A DNS leak happens when your DNS queries are sent to your ISP's servers instead of through the VPN, revealing every website you look up even while connected to a VPN.
What Is a WebRTC Leak?
A WebRTC leak exposes your real IP address through your browser's WebRTC API, even when you are connected to a VPN. It affects Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
How to Fix VPN Not Connecting
VPN connection failures usually come from firewall rules, wrong credentials, server overload, or protocol conflicts. Most can be fixed in under 5 minutes.
What Is a No-Logs VPN?
A no-logs VPN claims not to store any records of your browsing activity, connection timestamps, or IP addresses. Look for independently audited no-logs policies rather than trusting marketing claims alone.
What Is VPN Encryption?
VPN encryption scrambles your internet traffic so it cannot be read by anyone who intercepts it — your ISP, government agencies, or attackers on public Wi-Fi. AES-256 is the gold standard used by most reputable VPNs.
What Is Double VPN?
Double VPN routes your traffic through two VPN servers instead of one, adding a second layer of encryption. It increases anonymity but reduces speed.
What Is VPN Obfuscation?
VPN obfuscation disguises VPN traffic to look like normal HTTPS traffic, helping bypass deep packet inspection used in countries that block VPN protocols.
What Is IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange v2)?
IKEv2 is a VPN tunneling protocol developed by Microsoft and Cisco that offers fast connection speeds, automatic reconnection when switching networks, and strong security — making it the default protocol on most mobile VPN apps.
What Is a VPN Tunnel?
A VPN tunnel is an encrypted, private connection between your device and a VPN server. Your data travels through this tunnel, shielded from your ISP, hackers, and surveillance.
What Is a VPN Protocol?
A VPN protocol is the set of rules that governs how a VPN client and server establish a secure connection, exchange encryption keys, and transmit data. The choice of protocol affects speed, security, and the ability to bypass firewalls.
DNS
How Does DNS Work?
DNS works by routing your domain lookup through a chain of servers - from your device's cache to recursive resolvers, root servers, and authoritative nameservers.
What Is a DNS Lookup?
A DNS lookup queries the DNS system to find the IP address or other records associated with a domain name.
What Is DNS Cache Poisoning?
DNS cache poisoning is an attack where false DNS records are injected into a resolver's cache, redirecting users to malicious websites without their knowledge.
How to Flush Your DNS Cache
Flushing your DNS cache clears stored DNS records so your device fetches fresh ones. It fixes connection errors after DNS changes propagate.
What Is a DNS Record?
DNS records are instructions stored on authoritative nameservers that tell the DNS system how to handle queries for a domain, including which IP to use and where to send email.
What Is an A Record in DNS?
An A record is a DNS record that maps a domain name to an IPv4 address. It is the most fundamental DNS record type.
What Is a CNAME Record?
A CNAME (Canonical Name) record creates an alias that points one domain name to another. It is commonly used for www subdomains and CDN configurations.
What Is an MX Record?
An MX (Mail Exchange) record tells the internet which mail servers handle email for a domain. Without it, no one can send you email.
What Is a TXT Record in DNS?
A TXT record stores arbitrary text in DNS. It is most commonly used for email authentication (SPF, DKIM), domain verification, and DMARC policies.
What Is Reverse DNS Lookup?
Reverse DNS lookup finds the domain name associated with an IP address. It is the opposite of a standard DNS lookup and is used for email verification and security.
What Is DNSSEC?
DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) adds cryptographic signatures to DNS records, allowing resolvers to verify that a DNS response is authentic and has not been tampered with.
What Is DNS Propagation?
DNS propagation is the time it takes for DNS record changes to spread across all DNS servers worldwide. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to 72 hours depending on TTL settings.
What Is DNS TTL?
DNS TTL (Time to Live) is the value in a DNS record that tells resolvers how long to cache the record before requesting a fresh copy from the authoritative name server.
What Is a Nameserver?
A nameserver is a server that stores DNS records for a domain and answers queries about it. When you change your domain's nameservers, you control which provider manages your DNS.
Security
What Is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL certificate is a digital credential that verifies a website's identity and enables encrypted HTTPS connections. Browsers show a padlock when a valid certificate is present.
How to Check an SSL Certificate
You can check an SSL certificate by clicking the padlock in your browser, using online tools, or running command-line checks. Look for expiry date, issuer, and domain match.
What Is HTTPS and Why Does It Matter?
HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is HTTP with TLS encryption layered on top. It ensures that data between your browser and a website is encrypted, authenticated, and protected from tampering.
What Are Open Ports?
Open ports are network ports actively listening for connections. Each open port corresponds to a running service and is a potential entry point if not properly secured.
What Is an IP Blacklist?
An IP blacklist (or blocklist) is a database of IP addresses known to send spam, launch attacks, or engage in abuse. Being listed can block your email and web traffic.
What Is IP Spoofing?
IP spoofing is a technique where an attacker sends packets with a forged source IP address, hiding their identity or impersonating another system.
What Is a Man-in-the-Middle Attack?
A MITM attack intercepts communications between two parties without their knowledge. HTTPS and VPNs prevent most MITM attacks on the internet.
What Is a Brute Force Attack?
A brute force attack tries every possible password or key combination until the correct one is found. It is one of the oldest and most common attack methods.
What Is Malware?
Malware is software intentionally designed to damage, disrupt, or gain unauthorized access to a system. It includes viruses, trojans, ransomware, spyware, and more.
What Is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts your files and demands payment to restore access. It is one of the most financially damaging forms of cybercrime.
What Is Packet Sniffing?
Packet sniffing is the process of capturing and analyzing data packets as they travel across a network. Legitimate tools use it for diagnostics; attackers use it to intercept credentials and private data.
What Is Social Engineering in Cybersecurity?
Social engineering is the use of psychological manipulation to trick people into revealing confidential information or performing actions that compromise security. It targets human behaviour, not software vulnerabilities.
What Is a Zero-Day Vulnerability?
A zero-day vulnerability is a software flaw that is unknown to the vendor and has no available patch. Attackers can exploit it freely until the developer discovers and fixes it.
What Is a Botnet?
A botnet is a network of internet-connected devices that have been secretly infected with malware and are controlled by an attacker to carry out large-scale attacks.
What Is IP Reputation?
IP reputation is a score assigned to an IP address based on its history of behaviour online. A poor reputation can cause emails to be blocked, websites to flag your traffic, and services to deny access.
What Is IP Whitelisting?
IP whitelisting is a security control that only allows access from a pre-approved list of IP addresses, blocking all others. It is commonly used to protect admin panels, APIs, and internal tools.
What Is ARP Poisoning?
ARP poisoning is an attack where a malicious device sends fake ARP messages to link its MAC address to a legitimate IP address, allowing it to intercept, modify, or stop network traffic.
What Is Network Segmentation?
Network segmentation divides a computer network into isolated zones so that a breach in one segment cannot automatically spread to others. It is a core principle of defense-in-depth security architecture.
What Is an Email Header?
An email header is a block of metadata at the top of every email that records the sender, recipient, route, timestamps, and authentication results as the email travels from server to server.
How to Trace an Email Header
Tracing an email header reveals the original sender's IP, the route taken through mail servers, and whether authentication passed. Use it to investigate spam or spoofed email.
What Is an SPF Record?
An SPF record is a DNS TXT record that lists which mail servers are authorized to send email for your domain, preventing others from spoofing your address.
What Is DKIM?
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to outgoing email that recipient servers can verify, proving the message has not been tampered with in transit.
What Is DMARC?
DMARC is an email authentication policy that tells recipient mail servers what to do with email that fails SPF and DKIM checks. It helps prevent email spoofing at scale.
What Is SMTP?
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the standard protocol used to send email between servers. It handles the transmission of outgoing mail from your client to the recipient's mail server.
Passwords
How to Create a Strong Password
A strong password is long (16+ characters), random, and unique per site. Use a password manager to generate and store it, not a pattern you memorize.
What Makes a Password Secure?
Password security comes from length, randomness, and uniqueness. A long random password that is not reused elsewhere is the gold standard.
What Is Password Entropy?
Password entropy measures how unpredictable a password is, expressed in bits. More bits means more guesses needed to crack it by brute force.
How Long Does It Take to Crack a Password?
An 8-character password can be cracked in hours. A 16-character random password would take centuries even with specialized cracking hardware.
What Is a Password Manager?
A password manager stores all your passwords in an encrypted vault. You remember one strong master password; it handles the rest, generating and filling unique passwords for every site.
How to Check If Your Password Was Breached
Check if your email or password appears in known data breaches using our Breach Check tool, which queries the HaveIBeenPwned database.
Privacy
What Is Incognito Mode?
Incognito mode prevents your browser from saving browsing history, cookies, and form data locally. It does not hide your IP address or activity from your ISP or websites.
Does Incognito Mode Hide Your IP Address?
No. Incognito mode only prevents local history from being saved. Your IP address remains fully visible to websites, your ISP, and network administrators.
What Is an Internet Cookie?
An internet cookie is a small text file stored by your browser that lets websites remember you, your login session, and your preferences across visits.
What Data Does My Browser Leak?
Your browser can expose your IP, screen resolution, installed fonts, GPU model, time zone, battery level, and more - even in private browsing mode.
What Is the Tor Browser?
The Tor Browser routes your traffic through three volunteer-run relays (onion routing), making it very difficult to trace. It is free but significantly slower than regular browsing.
What Is End-to-End Encryption?
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) ensures only the sender and recipient can read a message. Even the service provider cannot access the content.
What Is Personal Data?
Personal data is any information that can identify a person, directly or indirectly. This includes name, email, IP address, location, and behavioral data.
What Is a User-Agent String?
A User-Agent string is sent by your browser with every HTTP request. It identifies your browser, version, and operating system. Websites use it to detect devices and optimize content.
What Is a Data Broker?
A data broker is a company that collects personal information about people from many sources and sells it to advertisers, insurers, employers, and others — usually without your knowledge.
What Is GDPR?
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the European Union's comprehensive data privacy law. It gives EU residents rights over their personal data and imposes strict rules on how organizations collect, store, and use it.
What Is Metadata?
Metadata is data about data. It describes the context, structure, or attributes of content — such as when a photo was taken, where it was taken, or who sent an email — without revealing the content itself.
What Is a Tracking Pixel?
A tracking pixel is a tiny, invisible image embedded in emails or web pages. When loaded, it reports your IP address, device type, and the time you opened the content back to the sender.
What Is Online Anonymity?
Online anonymity means browsing or communicating in a way that prevents others from linking your activity to your real identity. True anonymity is difficult to achieve and requires multiple layers of protection.
What Are Supercookies?
Supercookies are tracking identifiers stored outside the browser's standard cookie jar — in caches, IndexedDB, or even the network layer — making them extremely difficult to delete and a serious privacy threat.
Networking
What Is a Subnet Mask?
A subnet mask defines which part of an IP address identifies the network and which part identifies the individual host. It is written as 255.255.255.0 or /24 in CIDR.
How to Calculate a Subnet
Subnet calculation finds the network address, broadcast address, and usable host range from an IP and subnet mask. Use our Subnet Calculator for instant results.
What Is an ASN Lookup?
An ASN lookup finds the Autonomous System Number associated with an IP address, revealing which ISP or organization owns and routes that IP block.
What Is a Hostname?
A hostname is a human-readable label assigned to a device on a network. On the internet, hostnames are part of domain names and resolve to IP addresses via DNS.
What Is Network Address Translation (NAT)?
NAT allows multiple devices on a private network to share one public IP address. Your home router uses NAT to let all your devices access the internet through a single ISP-assigned IP.
What Is IPv6 Adoption?
IPv6 adoption has passed 45% globally as of 2024. Mobile networks and major ISPs lead adoption, while many enterprises lag due to legacy infrastructure costs.
What Is BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)?
BGP is the routing protocol that runs the internet. It determines how data travels between autonomous systems (networks run by ISPs, cloud providers, and large organizations) to reach its destination.
What Is Packet Loss?
Packet loss occurs when data packets travelling across a network fail to reach their destination. Even small amounts of packet loss cause significant slowdowns, lag in games, and choppy video calls.
What Is a CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
A CDN is a globally distributed network of servers that deliver web content from locations close to the user, reducing latency and improving load times.
What Is a TCP Handshake?
A TCP handshake is the three-step process used to establish a reliable connection between two devices before data is exchanged. It consists of SYN, SYN-ACK, and ACK messages.
What Is a MAC Address?
A MAC address is a unique 48-bit hardware identifier burned into every network interface — Wi-Fi card, Ethernet port, or Bluetooth chip. It operates at Layer 2 and is used for local network communication, not internet routing.
What Is Port Forwarding?
Port forwarding is a router configuration that redirects incoming traffic on a specific port from your public IP address to a specific device and port on your private network, allowing external access to local services.
What Is Throughput?
Throughput is the actual amount of data successfully transferred over a network in a given time period. It differs from bandwidth (maximum capacity) and speed test results because it accounts for real-world overhead, congestion, and errors.
Speed
Download Speed vs Upload Speed: What Is the Difference?
Download speed is how fast data comes to your device (streaming, loading pages). Upload speed is how fast you send data (video calls, file uploads). Most connections have much faster download than upload.
What Affects Internet Speed?
Internet speed is affected by your ISP plan, router quality, Wi-Fi vs wired connection, network congestion, server distance, and the number of devices on your network.
How to Test Your Internet Speed
Test your internet speed by running a speed test, ideally over a wired connection with only one device active, to get an accurate measure of your download, upload, and latency.
What Is a Good Internet Speed?
A good internet speed for most households is 100 Mbps download. 25 Mbps is the FCC's minimum broadband definition. 500 Mbps+ is future-proof for power users.
What Is Latency in Internet?
Internet latency is the time it takes for data to travel from your device to a server and back, measured in milliseconds. Low latency is critical for gaming, video calls, and real-time apps.
Why Is My Internet Slow?
Slow internet is caused by Wi-Fi interference, network congestion, too many devices, ISP throttling, outdated hardware, or VPN overhead. Diagnose by testing wired vs wireless.
What Is Jitter in Networking?
Jitter is the variation in latency over time. High jitter causes choppy voice calls and laggy video. Under 5ms is ideal; over 30ms causes noticeable quality issues.
What Affects Download Speed?
Download speed is affected by your ISP plan, Wi-Fi signal strength, server location, number of active devices, and network congestion.
What Is Bufferbloat?
Bufferbloat is excessive latency caused by oversized network buffers that become full during congestion. It makes your internet feel slow and laggy even when you have high bandwidth.
Wi-Fi
What Is a Captive Portal?
A captive portal is the login page that appears when you connect to public Wi-Fi in hotels, airports, and cafes. It intercepts your browser and requires acceptance before full internet access.
Why Is the Captive Portal Not Showing on Mac?
The captive portal login page usually fails to appear on Mac because a VPN is active, macOS probes are being blocked, or you need to trigger it manually via Safari.
VPN Blocking Captive Portal: How to Fix It
A VPN blocks captive portals by encrypting traffic before the portal can intercept it. The fix: disconnect VPN, log in to the portal, then reconnect VPN.
How to Fix Mac Wi-Fi Problems
Most Mac Wi-Fi issues are fixed by restarting network services, renewing the DHCP lease, flushing DNS, or resetting network preferences.
Public Wi-Fi Security Risks
Public Wi-Fi risks include man-in-the-middle attacks, rogue hotspots, and unencrypted traffic snooping. A VPN and HTTPS together protect you on shared networks.
How to Use a VPN on Public Wi-Fi
Connect to Wi-Fi first, complete any captive portal login, then turn on your VPN. Verify with a leak test. This order prevents VPN from blocking portal authentication.