What your browser just told us
The exact request headers this page arrived with, and what each one gives away.
Runs on our server; the query is not stored.
What you are looking at#
Every request your browser makes starts with a block of headers: short lines that describe the request and the browser making it. The page shows the ones this request arrived with, in two groups. Sent by your browser are the ones your browser wrote. Added by the network are the ones a proxy, CDN or load balancer inserted on the way, which your browser never saw.
Headers that matter for privacy#
| Header | What it tells the server |
|---|---|
User-Agent | Browser, version and operating system. Increasingly reduced by browsers, with the detail moved to client hints |
Sec-CH-UA and other client hints | The same information in structured form, which the server may ask for |
Accept-Language | Your preferred languages, a common signal for guessing your country |
Accept-Encoding | Which compression formats the browser understands |
Referer | The page you came from. The header name is a historic misspelling of "referrer". Browsers trim it by default |
Cookie | Everything stored for this site, sent back on each request |
Sec-GPC | The Global Privacy Control signal: a request not to sell or share your data |
Sec-Fetch-* | Metadata about how the request was triggered, used for security checks |
Where is the IP address?#
Not in your browser's headers. The address comes from the connection, and the headers the network adds, such as X-Forwarded-For, carry it further along when a proxy sits in front of a site. The second group on the page shows what they added. How websites see your IP address explains why the leftmost entry of that header cannot always be trusted.
For developers#
Use it to check what actually reaches your application behind a CDN or reverse proxy, and to debug a proxy configuration that drops or rewrites headers. The same data is available as JSON from the developer API, so scripts can read it.
Related guides
- How websites see your IP addressEvery site you visit receives your public IP address. Where it comes from, how proxies and CDNs pass it along, what else is sent with it, and what a VPN changes.
- A beginner's guide to networkingHow devices talk to each other: layers, addresses, ports, routers, DHCP and DNS, and what really happens between typing a web address and seeing the page.