[alex_duf]

I'm afraid this is factually wrong, my computer had a public IP until the early 2010s as around these days modems were just models and not routers too.

And with IPv6 all my devices could be publicly addressed but I've enabled a firewall to block incoming traffic at the router level.

[Suppafly]

>my computer had a public IP until the early 2010s as around these days modems were just models and not routers too.

You realize that wasn't the norm though right?

[globular-toast]

It was. Our 56k modem was a PCI card. Later we had ISDN and ADSL modems (I still use the latter to this day). I only got a router (a Linksys device) to attach multiple computers to the internet. It was a few years before ISPs started bundling routers and WiFi APs.

[thebruce87m]

I hadn’t made that connection about 56k and public IPs until now. I just used it at the time before I had any of the knowledge I did now. Interesting!

[globular-toast]

I didn't think about it before I got the router. I found it a bit annoying because I had to think about things like port forwarding. Previously everything just worked without any configuration (like P2P file sharing or running a game server). I'm not sure I really understood it even then, though. Just followed instructions parrot fashion.

[thebruce87m]

Yep, same for me. I was just a teenager wanting to play games and then suddenly I had to know about port forwarding.