What is a public IP address?
A public IP address is a unique number assigned to a device when it connects to the internet. It is used to identify the device and allow other devices on the internet to communicate with it.
When you connect to the internet through a router, the router is assigned a public IP address, and all the devices connected to that router share the same public IP address. However, each device also has a unique private IP address only used within the local network.
There are two main types of IP addresses: IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 uses a 32-bit system, which limits the number of available addresses, while IPv6 uses a 128-bit system, offering a much larger address space to accommodate more devices as the internet grows.
Keep in mind that IP addresses are different from other identifiers such as MAC addresses or UUIDs. A MAC address is a hardware-level identifier for network interfaces, while a UUID is a unique string often used in software or databases. They serve different purposes and are not interchangeable with IP addresses.