Traceroutes are often used for network troubleshooting. They allow the user to identify paths that were taken for packets to reach a destination on the network through showing a list of traversed routers. This can help to identify firewall or routing problems that could be blocking or slowing ICMP traffic. Traceroute tools are also often used by penetration testers to help gather reports on IP ranges and network infrastructure.

The first traceroute program began in 1987 and was written by Van Jacobson. However, the ping program inventor, Mike Muuss, stated that traceroute was written with ICMP kernel support, which he had originally encoded.

Another popular use for a traceroute tool is to make downloading more efficient. Some downloadable files provide multiple mirrors that offer the same piece of data, but some mirrors may download at different speeds than others. With traceroute, a user can trace each mirror to its location to determine which mirror would be the fastest to download from.

During the early days of the internet, it was convenient and acceptable to provide detailed information on network packets, but recently there have been security and privacy problems. Often traceroute information is used by hackers as a way to obtain sensitive information regarding the network architecture of a company. By using the traceroute command system, the hacker can quickly find the location of intermediate routers and track the destination of files and information being sent across the network. In the past there were hardly any restrictions on tracing packets, but now most companies and organizations make sure that sensitive information cannot be traced through a traceroute command. Many networks de-prioritize ICMP time or block traceroute requests altogether in order to improve network security. However, filtering network traffic in to de-prioritize it is considered a controversial practice, so most networks instead block the requests.