Does IPv6 offer any security or performance over IPv4

Question

Is there any gains or reasons to move to IPv6 other then the lack of IPv4?

Is the protocol still the same as IPv4 or were there any major changes.

Answer 1

Performance, no. IPv6 headers are a few bytes longer than IPv4, so there's slightly more overhead, making it slightly less efficient. On top of that, IPv4 handling is often handled via hardware or via a hardware/software "fast path", whereas IPv6 handling is often fully software-based and thus a bit slower (higher latency).

Security, not really, no. At one time "true" IPv6 support required IPsec support, but that requirement was sorta dropped. Perhaps we should say, "eased". Even if IPv6 stacks are more likely to contain IPsec support than IPv4 stacks (which isn't likely, but is possible), it doesn't mean any OS or protocol or application is more likely to use IPsec with IPv6 than with IPv4. IPv6 stacks often support temporary addresses that are a bit harder to pin to specific machine, but they can still be pinned down to a specific LAN, which means they can track you down to your house, or your floor of your office building, apartment building, or college dormitory.