Wifi

[TimberWolf]

Even after buying a wireless modem and card for my PC, I've not messed about with wireless much except occasionally to connect to my own modem. I was messing about on it today though and noticed 4 other available connections, one of them being unencrypted and having 100% connectivity. This was quite probably someone's private network close by, but I was mainly interested in whether I could pick up free for use public ones. I believe our local University library provides free WIFI (though I've not yet tried it) and quite possibly other places such as MacDonalds.

Anyway the question. Does anyone use any free WIFI services and how widespread are they? I'm always on the look out was ways of ditching my landline (where 99% of my phone bill is for line rental and ADSL capability), and ditching my ISP, which is also mostly wasted money paying for an ADSL connection. An alternative would be to subscribe to a true PAYG mobile phone tariff, but these don't appear to exist (e.g. 3G was PAYG+subscription + possibility of huge bills last time I looked). If I ditched the landline and tried a totally free WIFI route, I'd have to redirect email to yahoo or preferably find a free or low cost mail server and use SMTP/POP to avoid Yahoo, though I don't know if the latter service exists.

[Fred Bloggs]

I feel uncomfortable with using a Windows pc on a public wifi network after my visit to Majorca that resulted in a nasty virus infestation. At home I'm ofcourse behind a hardware firewall which (I think?) helps to keep nasties at bay? On a public wifi hotspot you're depending solely on the Windoze software firewall. I think I'll only use my Linux box in future on public wifi networks connections.

Or then again, am I talking rubbish?

[TimberWolf]

Another alternative I was looking at might be something along the lines of PocketSurfer2 which uses the mobile phone network. Costs £140 up-front and another £40 yearly for 20 hours / month surfing/email.

[TheRefactornator]

I don't use public wifi much but there are a few general rules in my book that should be considered before doing it:

• Don't use at all unless it supports WPA or at least WEP. Without some level of encryption over the air you're vulnerable to hack attempts and viruses (depending on what firewall / antivirus software you've got running on your connecting device). Unfortunately many public wifi hotspots in coffee shops etc do not support WPA or WEP because of the increased TCO and hassle to support it so I'd avoid those completely.
• Avoid any websites that require your username / password unless going over ssl (not specific to public wifi, just common sense).
• Use ssl enabled webmail where possible
• Never use IE but that's probably a decent rule to follow anywhere
• VPN is good if you use it because it adds another layer of security to public wifi. The VPN end point admin might have some objections to you using public wifi with their VPN however.

An alternative could be to use of one of the mobile networks e.g. T-mobiles web n walk thing is supposed to be uncapped data usage. Although these do go over public 3G / GPRS and they still have their risks, they're not as public as wifi.

[NotAllThere]

I feel uncomfortable with using a Windows pc on a public wifi network after my visit to Majorca that resulted in a nasty virus infestation. At home I'm ofcourse behind a hardware firewall which (I think?) helps to keep nasties at bay? On a public wifi hotspot you're depending solely on the Windoze software firewall. I think I'll only use my Linux box in future on public wifi networks connections.

Or then again, am I talking rubbish?

I think you're talking rubbish. I run COMODO software firewall. Keep it updated, and I shouldn't (and so far haven't) get any infections.