The internet uses Internet Protocol(IP) to uniquely identifiy devices on the internet.This
page shows your IP Address is being used on the internet - it may not be( and probably
isn't) the local IP address of your computer since you are hopefully behind a router
or firewall.
IP can be used for lots of things, howevr the most common is for HTTP, which is
a protocol (communication rules) used by web browsers and web servers. It goes something
like, you request a page, if the server has the page then it responds with 200 OK
and the page, if it doesn't the server responds with maybe a 304. Part of the HTTP
specification is for HTTP to send headers, that are not (usually) displayed to the
end user. These Headers passed by server and browser tell each of their capabilities,
thus things like screen height and width, the ability to support javascript, the
flavour of operating system etc can be used by the server program running on the
webserver to taylor the experience for the end user. |
