How to Disable IPv6 on All Your Devices

Ruheni Mathenge  - Streaming Expert
Last updated: October 28, 2023
Read time: 12 minutes
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Despite all its usefulness, IPv6 has some inherent privacy issues. So, this guide explains how to disable IPv6 and why you should do it.

THE TAKEAWAYS

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest IP system capable of assigning more unique IP numbers to internet users. While IPv6 has been around for a while, it is yet to replace IPv4 fully and is currently used in tandem with IPv4. Unfortunately, that becomes a privacy risk as most IP masking technologies or proxies typically aim to hide the IPv4 only, leaving the IPv6 address exposed online. Therefore, users must learn how to disable IPv6 on their devices to ensure thorough internet privacy.

Any internet-enabled device has a unique IP address that identifies it for internet communication to work. These IP addresses can be IPv4 or IPv6, or both since both methods are in place today. Because IPv4 is more common, people often consider it the sole IP address for any device, focusing all methods on modifying this address only. However, there can be numerous situations where you need to disable IPv6 discretely.

But how to disable IPv6, we hear you ask. Don’t worry; this quick guide explains it for all major operating systems step-by-step. But before that, let’s quickly understand what IPv6 is all about and which factors trigger the need to disable IPv6.