Difference between IPv4 and IPv6

“What kind of animals are these, these are your IPv6 and IPv4?” — Quite often flashing in interested circles, a question. Many users ask themselves it and cannot figure it out, but what is there a difference, and for what reason are both options still on the go? In general, there is nothing from the field of nuclear physics here, it is not difficult to understand this. Each of the listed protocols (IPv6 and IPv4 — protocols) is part of the Internet, they make it possible to visit web resources, obtain information, download data, and other, uncomplicated, actions on the network.

Let’s still analyze in an accessible language what are the differences between IPv6 and IPv4 and draw some conclusions. And we will help in this difficult matter, with the help of this article.

Technical features of the protocols

To understand the purposes and principles of web protocols, we will have to get into the technical details. Activity in the web space is drawn up in such a scheme that all users are assigned an identifier (label, so to speak) in the form of certain numbers — they are also IP addresses (Internet protocol). Servers where web resources are located, in general, are machines with huge capacities, connected to the network around the clock, for this reason, they, like ordinary users, are given unique IP addresses, and they already allow users and sites to interact.

What do we know about IPv4?

Such a thing as setting the IPv4 protocol version became available to us much earlier than setting the IPv6 version protocol, which in general sounds logical. This is due to the improvement in technology and the way data is exchanged for network users. And now, if we can find a lot of information in the public domain about the initial version of the protocol because everyone is used to it, then with the second, more advanced version, there will be somewhat less information. By the time the IPv4 protocol was created in 1980, the developers could not predict that the use of addresses could be many times wider than they expected, and because of this, they narrowed their number to 4,294,967,269 possible unique addresses.

 Technology has not stood still, the Internet and devices, too. Suddenly, the threat of a shortage of free IPv4 addresses was on the agenda. It is not difficult to assume that this was the main reason for the implementation of the IPv6 version, thanks to which it will be possible to use approximately 300 million IP addresses for each inhabitant of the planet. In an adequate figure, this is difficult to convey, but believe me, this is a lot, this figure will be enough for several generations, in theory. The market price of IPv6 is much lower than that of its predecessor, protocol version IPv4, which is explained by a large number of free IPs for protocol version 6 and the reverse situation, shortage, on protocol version 4.

IPv6, what do we know?

In general, IPv6 is a simple module, which has a close to ideal structure and an order of magnitude larger scope of functionality. IPv6 is a relatively new version of the protocol, in this version, it is possible to provide good processing speed from the side of the router and have decent security just while using the network. So which is better in the end, IPv4 or IPv6? We think you already guessed it. Of course, the newer version has more developments, which means it becomes a higher priority because why take the old when there is a new one? But here an oxymoron appears: not all modern providers support the modern protocol, the sixth version. This is explained by the fact that the transition to new equipment requires decent funding, and this becomes a huge hole on the way to improvement.

Of course, this is not to say that you have no real chances to work on the IPv6 protocol, the connection can be arranged through an IPv4 tunnel, and not worry too much about “is your provider ready for the new one”.

All we need to know in the end is whether the site ipv6-test.com/validate.php, which is necessary for checking the performance, is functioning. The principle of operation is simple: insert the address of the link to the site you are interested in in the appropriate line and that’s it, you are great. If the site supports this technology, then you can freely use the IPv6 version of the proxy. Let’s take all this information to its logical conclusion and draw the main differences between protocol versions.

IPv4/IPv6 protocol differences:

The first and most distinctive feature is the appearance of the IP addresses themselves:

Example:

• IPv4: 111.22.333.444
• IPv6: 1111:2db2:3a3:33d3:4a44:5a5e:66a6:777d

Of course, it doesn’t look very clear, but there is a reason for everything. When changing the modernization of the type of encryption, as well as the expansion of numerical data, due to the need to implement a large number of new IP addresses. The IPv6 version protocol will make it possible to obtain good speed and quality of data protection in the web space. The modern version of the protocol gives hope and now has very obvious prospects for exploitation, but at the same time, it takes up memory and needs user interaction.

As for the IPv4 protocol, then one of the “good” is that they are popular in especially large projects because now it is not so easy for them to go on the path of modernization without losing a lot of money. So there are a lot of users of this protocol too.

This was the basic difference between modern web protocols.