How to find best IP address tracker

An IP address is a unique identification code allocated to every device that wants to connect to the internet. In this day and age, with billions of people and businesses online, it has become a necessity to have access to the web on the go. As a result of this, phones, tablets, laptops, etc. come with the equipped with the ability to connect to the internet.

IP addresses are thus required in order to uniquely identify each device as well as for the smooth communication between various devices on the internet. Just like in order to send someone a letter by post, you need their postal address, in the same way, while sending a message to someone via the internet, you need their IP address.

IP address is a set of 4 blocks of digits separated by dots. Each block ranges from 0 to 255. 192.28.0.1 or 150.223.1.90 are examples of IP addresses. Based on their durability, they are divided into two types i.e. Static and Dynamic.
With static IP addresses, as the name suggests, once allocated to a device, these addresses remain constant. Thus, Static IPs are permanent addresses. They are costly because they are limited in number and are mostly the preferred choice for E-commerce giants or big organisations that need a uniform IP to represent them. Due to their static nature, such addresses are useful in geolocating the device. This means that it is possible to locate a device using a static IP address accurately enough right up to the country, region, locality or even pincode.

Usually, the answer to ‘what is my IP address’ can be easily found by either typing in the term in google search, or by taking help of one of the multitudes of IP tracking services online.

However, it is necessary to keep in mind that different lookup services provide different features and are paid or free depending upon your requirements. Hence, you should keep a few things in mind while finalising an IP tracker best suited to your needs.

Firstly, it’s important to figure out why you need the lookup service. Generally people use IP tracker services to find the origin of a suspicious email or a fishy site. However, these services may also be used to find out more information about an organisation you’re interested in, or to confirm which region a particular company whose product you are considering is located.

Depending on your purpose, you can choose the lookup service as needed. Some IP trackers just give you generic information like the country or region where the device is located. It is important to remember that this location isn’t always the location of the specific user in question but is mostly the location of the ISP(Internet Service Provider) of the target user.

If this doesn’t satisfy you, then you could go for a service that gives you more details like the exact locality, pin code, as well as latitude and longitude of the IP. If what you’re looking for is a general idea of the whereabouts of a device, this amount of information should be enough.

However for the more curious, there are services which also give you elaborate maps that use satellites to draw out the area and location of the device. In addition to this, sometimes in case of malicious activity, most hackers don’t use their own IPs but instead use Proxy servers which employ Dynamic IP addresses(i.e. IP addresses that change frequently and never remain constant making them harder to trace). Thankfully, there are certain IP tracker services that also inform you if the given IP is that of a proxy server.

All in all, you get a good, detailed idea of the geographical location of a device by knowing its given IP. However, you must keep in mind that none of these services will provide you with the actual name, contact details or physical address of the user associated with the IP. That amounts to breach of privacy.

If at all, in dire circumstances, say a case of a cyber attack, there is a need to know the identity of the user, then you can contact the local police authorities who can obtain the information from the respective internet service provider. There are also a few tools that indeed help you access the name, contact details, and physical address associated with an IP. Many of these tools also provide services like reverse IP lookup, DNS lookup and mail lookup too.

Some of the IP tracker services are paid, while others are free. Some give you a limit say, 10 IP addresses per day can be tracked for free, and are chargeable thereafter. Thus, depending on your budget, urgency requirement and the necessary details needed, you can easily choose the best IP tracker from the many available in the market.