What's the Difference Between a Public IP Address vs Private IP Address? or Public IP Address vs Priv

OP here—y’all are legends! This makes so much more sense now.

Didn’t realize NAT was doing all that heavy lifting behind the scenes. Checked my public ip on whatsmyip.org, and yep, it’s different from my phone’s private one (which is 192.168.1.12, btw).

One follow-up: If I set up a home server, do I *have* to use port forwarding, or are there easier ways? Heard about VPNs maybe helping?

Thanks again—this thread’s a goldmine!