About ExamineIP
Free tools and plain-English guides for understanding what your connection reveals — your IP address, your DNS, your VPN — and what you can actually do about it.
In short: one person builds and writes everything here. The tools are free and need no account. This page explains who that person is, exactly where your data goes when you use a tool, how the site pays for itself, and the rules the writing follows.
Who runs this
ExamineIP is a one-person project. I write the guides, build and maintain the tools, and answer the email. There is no team behind a logo — if something on this site is wrong, that is on me, and you can tell me directly.
I have used Linux and security tools since the BackTrack days, and most of what is on this site started as a question I once had to answer the slow way: why a VPN still leaks, what an ISP can see, why a site shows the wrong city. The aim is to give you the answer without the hours of forum threads it usually takes.
I also write the ExamineIP books, which cover the same ground in more depth — home network security, Linux, Kali, and how IP addresses really work.
What you will find here
Tools, on tools.examineip.com:
On this site: the Privacy Exposure Score, which shows what a website learns about you the moment you arrive; the Delete Yourself directory of data-broker opt-outs; and the guides, from fixing DNS errors to what a VPN really hides.
Where your data goes when you use a tool
A privacy site that is vague about its own data handling is not worth trusting, so here it is, tool by tool. Some tools need a server to do their job — a browser cannot run a DNS blacklist query or scan a port — and those are listed plainly rather than hidden behind a “nothing leaves your browser” promise.
| Tool | What happens |
|---|---|
| Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere | |
| Subnet Calculator | Pure arithmetic on your device. |
| Email Header Analyzer | Your pasted headers are parsed locally and never uploaded. |
| Encoding Tools | Encoding and hashing happen locally, using your browser’s own crypto functions. |
| Password strength and generators | Checked and generated on your device. |
| Your browser talks to a third party directly | |
| DNS Checker | Queries Google Public DNS and Cloudflare, over encrypted DNS. |
| WHOIS Lookup | Asks the official registries through rdap.org. |
| Password breach check | Sends only the first five characters of a hash to Have I Been Pwned. The password itself never leaves your device. |
| Speed Test | Transfers test data to and from Cloudflare’s speed-test servers. |
| Ping Test | Times requests to my server by default, or to Cloudflare, Google, or a host you choose. |
| Goes through my server | |
| What Is My IP | My server reads the address you connect from and looks it up with ip-api.com. If my server doesn’t answer, the page asks ipify.org instead. A separate IPv6 check always asks ipify.org. |
| VPN Leak Test | The same lookup, fallback and IPv6 check as What Is My IP. If the fallback is used, your location is looked up with ipapi.co. The WebRTC check contacts a Google STUN server. |
| Privacy Exposure Score | My server reads your address and looks it up with ip-api.com. The WebRTC check contacts a Google STUN server. |
| Bulk IP Lookup | The addresses you paste go to my server, which looks them up with ip-api.com. |
| IP Reputation | My server queries public DNS blacklists and the Tor Project’s published exit list, and looks the address up with ip-api.com. |
| Port Scanner | My server tests your own address only — it cannot be pointed at anyone else. It keeps a short-lived, hashed counter to stop abuse. |
None of the tool scripts save what you look up. Like every website, the hosting server keeps standard access logs, which include IP addresses. I don’t sell visitor data.
Analytics and cookies
Two analytics services run on this site. Umami counts visits without cookies and without identifying you. Google Analytics, installed through Google’s Site Kit plugin, works with the cookie banner using Google Consent Mode: in the UK, the EU and similar regions, it sets no analytics cookies until you accept them. The Google tag still loads on each page, and until you choose it can send limited, cookieless signals. The details are in the cookie policy and the privacy policy.
How the site pays for itself
Hosting, domains, the lookup services and the time to write all cost something, and I would rather tell you how that is covered than let you guess.
Affiliate links. Some links to VPNs and other services earn a commission if you buy,
at no cost to you. They are marked, and they go through clearly named /go/ links. A
commission never decides what gets recommended — pages that compare products give you the criteria so you
can judge for yourself. Full details in the
affiliate disclosure.
Books and donations. The books are sold on Amazon, and if a tool has saved you time you can support the site through PayPal. Any amount helps, and no account is needed.
The site may carry advertising in future. The tools are free and need no account; if paid extras are ever added, the tools that are free today will stay free.
The rules the writing follows
No invented testing
You will not find “we tested 47 VPNs” here, or pass rates, speed percentages or “#1 rated” badges that came from nowhere. If a claim needs evidence I don’t have, the page gives you a method to check it yourself instead. That is also why the tools show their working — which lists they queried, what was measured, and what they cannot tell you.
Tools that tell the truth about their limits
In September 2026 I audited every tool on the tools site and rebuilt the ones that were getting things wrong. Each tool now says what it measures, what it can’t, and when a result was not measured at all rather than guessing.
Corrections
If you find a mistake — a wrong fact, a broken tool, an outdated step — email me and I will fix it. Being told is far better than being wrong quietly.
Contact
Email contact@examineip.com. Bug reports, article corrections, topic suggestions and partnership questions are all welcome, and I read every message. I usually reply within a day or two.
When reporting a broken tool, it helps to include which tool, what you expected, what you saw, and your browser. Please don’t send passwords, full email headers containing private details, or anything else sensitive — describe the problem instead.
Privacy policy · Cookie policy · Affiliate disclosure · Terms · ExamineIP on PeerPush