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Resolved Question

What is IPv6? How can I use it?

Oct 8, 2012 3:01AM PDT

Hi,

Can someone explain to me in very layman terms what IPv6 is and how I can use/get it?

Thanks in advance!

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tommasosantojanni has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

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In short.
Oct 8, 2012 3:06AM PDT

It's going to be a long time to get this out.

Here's the article about it but for most folk, it's a non-starter as no common internet service uses it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

So unless you are doing research and willing to setup your own server and lose months of time, I suggest you forget about it.
Bob

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Thanks
Oct 8, 2012 11:44AM PDT

Thanks Bob...

In the article it doesn't say if it will be any faster. Will it?

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ipv6
Oct 8, 2012 10:27PM PDT

I guess if you want to be very picky it will be slower since you must transfer more bytes to obtain the same information.

The best way to think of this is that it is just a different name for your computer. It does not have any affect at all on the way data is sent between machines or the way applications process the data.

The key benefit to IPV6 is that there are more internet routable IP addresses. The key reason that not much has happened with IPV6 is that the vast majority of people do not even need the one IP address their ISP gives them now. NAT along with the ability of servers to share IP with DNS tricks has kept IPV6 on the sidelines so far.