14 DAY TRIAL // No matter how little you know about your computer you should always learn its address when connected to the Internet. That is the IP address, a string of numbers (and letters if you have an Ipv6 address) that locate your computer in the world. There's more than one type of IP and they are actually divided into different classes for the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to have better management over them.
How you get it? The ISP actually assigns one to you and generally, this should be communicated to the client. But, in some cases you're just going to use different tools for learning the information. The instruments to solve this problem are numerous and many of them are absolutely free. But generally they are a bit difficult to use.
Show My IP is an absolutely free software that has as sole purpose the display of your external IP. There is really no effort from the part of the user when working with the application. Show My IP is the easiest solution to view your external IP in a matter of seconds. No additional tools necessary, just a simple double click on the icon and a panel will be displayed with your external IP.
The application installs really quickly and you can configure it to place an icon on the desktop as well. Immediately after launching the application, your external IP will be shown in less than five seconds. There's no sweat to it and the program comes with a bunch of settings, too.
Tools menu contains three tabs for different settings regarding the frequency of automatic refresh of the IP, the text font and color in the window, the font and color of the font the IP is displayed in and starting mode of Show My IP.
Timer Settings dialog permits the user the setting of a default time for automatically checking your external IP. The units can be set to minutes or settings, according to your needs. Font settings window allows customization of the font and its color for both the application and IP display box. The options in this case are the regular ones and there are no exotic choices to make (regular font types, effects and options). The changes are instant and can be viewed in main window on the spot.
General options deal with the way the application starts. Show My IP can be set to start with Windows in either normal mode or minimized to system tray (it does go to tray when "minimize" button is pressed).
The flexibility of the program extends to allowing copying the IP to Windows Clipboard with a single click, but it falls short of a slew of useful options. First of all it is not fully portable. Portability would have come in great for such a tool.
For such an easy application I would have expected it to save all the settings in the installation folder, with a relative path to it. Making it USB flash capable would greatly extend its functionality as you can carry it around and learn the external IP of various computers: home PC, office computer, your friends', etc.
Next, it will only show the external IP, which is kind of limited functionality if you asked me. Having the possibility of showing both external and local IP would greatly increase its value. I know there are easy ways of learning the local IP of your computer (typing "ipconfig" in Command Prompt is one of them and an easier way is using Maxthon as it shows the local IP in the lower right corner of the window at all times).
After configuring the settings available in Show My IP and pressing OK window I expected it to vanish from sight. But nothing visible happens. The settings are saved, indeed, but there is no visible sign of the action. It could be baffling for the users and discarding the software as non-functional would be the mistake you should not make (especially if all you change is the refresh timer because there is no sign of the modification on the main panel of the software).
Truth of the matter is that the application works and is really helpful especially when you are benefiting from a dynamic IP. Each time you restart your computer or the lease expires you get a different identification number for your computer. Appealing to Show My IP allows you to learn in an instant the current IP of your computer. But there are downsides to the application which cannot be ignored. The greatest of them is portability as the program stores all settings to an absolute path on your computer (but it can run from an USB stick).
The Good
Show My IP works really fast and displays the current external address of your computer in a jiffy. It can create a desktop icon for easy access and you can configure it to start with Windows.
It is non-intrusive and when minimized it sits quietly in system tray area of the desktop. Show My IP is configurable and you can modify the font and color of the text appearing in the window as well as the refresh time for checking up the IP of the machine.
The Bad
It cannot be configured to store the settings to a relative path on your computer which makes it non-portable. Sure it can run from an USB stick but it will not save the changes.
Settings window does not close automatically when "OK" button is pressed and this aspect may be a bit confusing for the user.
My wishlist for the application would include the possibility of showing both local IP (when in a LAN) and the MAC address of the computer.
The Truth
Show My IP is fully functional, free, works great but its potential can be expanded by making it fully portable and adding a few more functions.
The external IP of the computer it runs on will be displayed in a matter of seconds. Also, you can install it on a USB stick and run it from there with absolutely no problems, but if you change a settings it will be saved on the computer and not in Show My IP folder on the stick.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
