Should you use the binary file format to evaluate our data?
The MMDB file format is a binary data format. Meaning that you need specialized tools such as our IPinfo MMDBctl tool or an MMDB reader library to get the information contained in the database. Not being a plaintext file, the content of the file is virtually obfuscated.
What does that mean for the MMDB sample file? Because the MMDB data does not transparently show the contents of the file, and this is a sample file, you are unlikely to get the full picture of the data downloads. So, when you look up a carrier IP address or an anonymous IP address from the MMDB sample, you are likely not to get any information from the data downloads. That is why we highly recommend you stick with the CSV and JSON database for evaluating our database.
Another option is to use our sample database repository. You can use either the CSV or the JSON files as a reference to look up IP addresses from the MMDB file. The MMDB files available there are created from the CSV files, allowing you to experiment with the IP addresses that are surely available there.