Half of Google's users now use IPv6, but home routers may still have it off

IPv4, introduced in 1981, fixed addresses at 32 bits and created about 4.3 billion of them. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority assigned its last few blocks to regional registries in February 2011, and North America's allocation ran dry in September 2015, according to the report. Home routers use Network Address Translation to cope, holding one public address while giving each device inside a private one. Many internet providers now do the same at a larger scale through carrier-grade NAT, placing groups of customers behind shared addresses.

That second translation layer can break some connections. In 2013, CableLabs and several ISPs tested everyday apps behind ISP NAT and found web browsing and Netflix worked, but peer-to-peer Xbox game connections failed when both players shared a public address, Engadget reported.

IPv6 was first standardized in 1995 with 128-bit addresses, about 340 undecillion in total. It cannot talk directly to IPv4, so networks run both in a dual-stack setup during the transition. Google measured IPv6 use at just under 51% of its users on Oct. 17, 2026, up from about 33% on the same day in 2020. France leads at 87%, while the U.S. sits at 55% and China at just over 6%, according to the report.

On a home network, IPv6 lets every device build its own public address from a prefix the router advertises. That can remove NAT from console-to-console connections. Xbox multiplayer and chat have used Teredo, a tunnel that carries IPv6 over IPv4, to get through home NAT, and Microsoft has said carrier-grade NAT was putting players behind strict networks with degraded multiplayer. Thread, the low-power mesh network used by many Matter smart-home devices, runs on IPv6, and Microsoft warns that some Windows components might not function if IPv6 is disabled.

ISP support remains uneven. APNIC data cited by Engadget showed about 85% of Comcast and AT&T users had IPv6 access, while Frontier was below 25%. On routers that support it, the setting usually has its own menu: TP-Link places it under Advanced > IPv6, and Eero under Settings > Advanced networking > IPv6. Engadget said IPv6 will not make Wi-Fi faster and that there is no compelling reason to dig through settings if a network works fine.

When IPv6 is turned on, the router's firewall takes over the job NAT used to do. The Internet Engineering Task Force recommends that home routers filter unsolicited inbound IPv6 traffic, but its guidance also requires an open transparent mode and allows manufacturers to make that the default. Engadget advised checking that the IPv6 firewall is on to improve router security.