Does Geth provide a private or public network?

Question

I'm new to the Blockchain world, lacking experience and I'm looking for some assistance. I'm just syncing with ethereum network by using Geth and rinkeby network. by using this command:

geth --rinkeby --rpc --rpcapi="personal,eth,network,web3,net" --ipcpath "\\\\.\\pipe\\'\\\\.\\pipe\\geth.ipc"

but I cannot know what type of network I was syncing with? Is it private or public? and what are the differences between both, as we can see for all transactions detail for both?

Answer 1

rinkeby is a public test network. If you type geth help, you'll see a number of public networks you can connect to, such as rinkeby, ropsten, goerli public test networks. If you don't specify a network, geth will connect to the public main net. You can check the Private Network Tutorial to see how to set up and connect to a private network.