Honeygain Explains: What's an IP and How Does It Work?

Even though Honeygain is currently the world’s largest web intelligence network, we believe it’s not just size that matters! Transparency and user awareness are also our priorities: we want to make sure our users have a 100% understanding of how Honeygain works, what their connection is used for, and how it allows them to earn free money effortlessly.

In this article, we’re going to start from the basics and explain the most important terms that are inseparable from crowdsourced web intelligence (a.ka. proxyware) networks.

Most active Internet users do know their network has an IP address that’s made of digits and periods – however, a lot less are aware of why they need it or what it means.

IP stands for Internet Protocol, which handles your online activity and requests. An IP address is basically a return address it uses to bring back the information you requested back to you. Without it, you couldn’t send any data back and forth – which is precisely what browsing the Internet means.

If you connect a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone to the same network, they will all share the same IP address.

IP addresses are issued by ISPs (Internet service providers – e.g., Sky or Verizon). Put in simple terms, it’s a company that provides you with an Internet connection for a defined subscription fee. More often than not, ISPs also offer TV and/or landline services.

Because of this, every IP address is associated with a particular Internet network and not a specific device. This means that if you connect a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone to the same network, they will all share the same IP address.

Not all IP addresses are made equal. First of all, they can be static or dynamic. The choice belongs to your ISP: they can either provide you with a static IP address that never changes or have a massive pool of re-assignable addresses that get switched regularly. While the former offers the benefit of consistency, the latter might prove to be more secure.

Moreover, IP addresses can be of an IPv4 or IPv6 type. You can tell the difference just by looking at them: IPv4 is made out of four numbers ranging from 0 to 255 with a period following each one (i.e., anything from 0.0.0.0. to 255.255.255.255.), and IPv6 consists of eight groups of four symbols (digits or letters), separated by colons.

Some ISPs have even been known to assign one IPv4 address to multiple subscribers. If you only have one device on your network/IP address, but your Honeygain app shows a network overuse, this might be exactly the case.

Theoretically, there can be 4.3 billion (232) IPv4 addresses and 340 undecillion (2128) IPv6 addresses. The problem is, ISPs have been assigning IPv4 addresses since the 1980s, and the amount of unused ones is already running out. The migration to IPv6 is ongoing – however, it’s way slower than we’d prefer. Due to the shortage, some ISPs have even been known to assign one IPv4 address to multiple subscribers.

If you only have one device on your network/IP address, but your Honeygain app shows a network overuse, this might be exactly the case: someone else has been unknowingly assigned the same IPv4 address and is already using it to earn effortlessly. If something like this occurs, do not hesitate to contact your Internet service provider and ask them to provide your network with a new IP address.

VoIP (also known as IP telephony) has gained a ton of popularity in recent years. The acronym itself stands for Voice over Internet Protocol – to put it simply, it means voice communication that is based on the Internet and not telephone networks. These days, audio is typically supported by video (think Skype, FaceTime, or Messenger calls).

Here’s an interesting fact: some countries (like China, Kuwait, or the United Arab Emirates) have effectively banned VoIP in their territory. Why? First of all, you can save a lot of money by switching from telephone to VoIP, which means a serious loss of income for government-owned phone companies – especially when it comes to international calls. Countries with harsher political regimes might also see VoIP blocks as an additional way to control all the online communication.

Luckily, citizens can often work around those blocks by using VoIP (or any other geo-restricted web content) via proxy networks or VPN services. Affordable and easy to use, these tech innovations can have a massive impact on the quality of people’s lives.

In your everyday life, you might hear about proxies in various decision-making processes: if someone has to vote but cannot actually attend the meeting required, they can send another person (a proxy) as their representative. Online proxies are somewhat similar.

If you’re using an online proxy, it acts as an intermediary between your browser and the website you’re accessing: before reaching the target, your traffic goes through the proxy. They’re mostly used for privacy and/or security reasons, as well as blocking specific content (e.g., implementing parental control) or the contrary – working around such blocks.

Using millions of such proxies at a time (a.k.a. a proxyware network), a company can automatically perform labor-intensive tasks like ad verification or identifying cases of copyright infringement.

Online proxies can be categorized by technique, accessibility, and source. The first option offers a choice of 4 proxy types:

When it comes to accessibility, there are three options: a proxy can be shared, semi-dedicated, or dedicated. The names are pretty self-explanatory – a proxy can be shared by an unlimited or limited number of users, as well as an individual one.

Now, based on source, proxies can be residential (assigned to a homeowner by an ISP) or datacenter (offered by cloud providers and not associated with any ISPs). Companies often consider the former better due to their legitimacy and better geographical coverage, but the latter is typically faster and cheaper to use.

Not exactly. Proxies and VPNs both mask your IP address and reroute your traffic, so understandably, they’re used for similar purposes – however, there are a few key differences. First and foremost, a proxy works on the browser/application level, while a VPN (Virtual Private Network) works on an operating system level.

VPNs are mostly used by individuals, and proxies are leveraged by businesses (e.g., for web scraping). It's also important to note that most VPNs assign the user a datacenter IP, which is not allowed in Honeygain. This means your account can be suspended – therefore, we wouldn’t advise you to use a VPN when earning with Honeygain.

Most VPNs assign the user a datacenter IP, which is not allowed in Honeygain. This means your account can be suspended.

In some sources, you might read that VPNs are safer because they encrypt your data while proxies don’t. This is not exactly the case: proxies are not technically required to use encryption, but many of them actually do.

Encryption is one of the primary concepts of web security – especially when it comes to using intermediaries like proxies or VPNs. Simply put, it means changing (encoding) the information in a way that makes it indecipherable in transit but readable to authorized parties.

It’s basically a must for anyone who’s dealing with Internet connections these days… And before you ask – yes, Honeygain uses data encryption as well!

We sincerely hope the overall idea of the industry is a lot clearer in your head right now – and if there are any leftover questions, doubts, or concerns, do not hesitate to ask our incredible support team!

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