I see I can choose t use it pretty easily, but I’m not doing anything more advanced than setting up a WordPress site. Can someone ELI5 me the benefits, if any, there would be to me choosing to enable this?
Also, why isn’t it turned on by default? Is there a downside to having it on?
Thanks
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Most browsers these days will try to connect over IPv6, but if they don’t get a working connection within 300 milliseconds they will try to connect over IPv4 in parallel. The first connection that succeeds is then used. This is covered in the Happy Eyeballs RFC.
Some of the internet and network providers use separate links for IPv6 which are less used due to a lower deployment of IPv6 and hence the traffic appears faster. If your website supports ip6, it might get benefit from that advantage.
As long as you also have an IPv4 address, nothing changes. The only role it can play is if you don’t have an IPv4 address because some people can’t use IPv6 yet.
Imho it’s better to use IPv4 exclusively for now. Support for it is superior atm, give it a few years.
Rephrasing this ramble: No advantages, no disadvantages. Just different.
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