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How to Get Free WiFi Anywhere, Anytime
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| Guest Blog Post |
A big part of being social online is being social everywhere you go. Tweeting from a big conference, Instagramming from the restaurant (or the bar) after the presentation is over, and responding to Facebook from a coffee shop are all tasks that your average social expert will take on all the time.
Have you ever once stopped to think if these acts are safe? There are a countless number of hacks that are found on free WiFi in public spaces, and you’ll never know they have hit you ...until your data is gone, or your bank accounts start acting funny.
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| Finding and Using Wi-Fi Hot Spots |
This article is going to give you tools to find free WiFi while you’re travelling, and then give you the tools and tactics that will keep you safer.
Find free WiFi anywhere
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| How to Get Free WiFi Anywhere, Anytime |
Fon Hotspot Network
Fon is a huge network of hotspots found all over the globe. It is a bit of a different concept as you’re crowdsourcing free WiFi off routers that are also part of the Fon network. The catch is that you do have to buy a $50 Fonera router to join. Once you do you’ll find free WiFi off other Fonera routers in:
- UK
- France
- Portutal
- Brazil
- South Korea
- USA
- Canada
And they’re expanding all the time. With over 14 million hotspots globally, there could always be a WiFi connection waiting for you to join.
Instagbridge Crowdsource App
Instabridge is another crowdsourcing style WiFi finder with a built in connection client. How it works is via an interactive map where people who want to participate open their WiFi up. The map and connection client work together pretty seamlessly, and there can be surprisingly many connections around in dense, urban areas.
WiFi Finder App
You can find the WiFi Finder on both Android and iOS. It helps you find free WiFi via a database it stores of over 650,000 hotspots. These are the hotspots hosted by restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses.
There are a few drawbacks:
- It doesn’t tell you when the WiFi is on
- There is no performance data
- No information about passwords is given
- It’s a data heavy program - download it before you leave
- It can be data heavy while using
If you want truly free WiFi wherever you go, this cold be just the app.
Free Zone Android App
Free Zone is Android only app that functions much the same way as WiFi Finder. The biggest difference is that it gives out passwords for the free WiFi network so you can stop by a coffee shop close enough to get a signal, but not have to go inside.
Another strength is how it will notify you if it’s near one of the nearly 5 million free WiFi hotspots that it stores in its database. If only it was for iOS...
Protect yourself on free WiFi
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| Public WiFi Security | Wireless Security Tips |
Nothing is ever really ‘free,’ know what I’m saying? With all of these free WiFi spots around, and people blindly joining them, you can be sure that someone out there has found ways to exploit people’s ignorance and blind trust:
- Evil Twin attacks steal passwords, and login data, as plain text.
- Sniffers passively intercept data sent between your web browser and web servers on the Internet.
- ARP Spoofing allows a hacker to sniff traffic on a LAN and modify or stop the traffic altogether.
And those are just three of many. Protecting yourself from them, however, can be quite easy if you connect to free WiFi wisely. Here are the tools and tactic to use every time you connect to a free WiFi network that you don’t know:
- Use a VPN. This encryption tool will make it impossible for a hacker to execute many hacks as the information they steal will be encrypted - an indecipherable jumble. You simply connect to the WiFi network, then connect to your VPN server and enjoy complete protection. Visit this link to our website to find a VPN provider for your particular needs, as there are many other things that a VPN can do for you.
- Never trust a free WiFi network that asks you to set up an account. Many times you’re actually giving a hacker exactly what they want - your sign in credentials. If you use the same login and password over and over, as many people do, a hacker can take this data and use it to try to sign into your bank, iTunes, Amazon, eBay, etc, etc.
- If a free WiFi network is associated with a business, don’t be afraid to simply ask for the correct WiFi network name. You could go to Starbucks and see a connection labelled ‘Free Starbuck Connection,’ but id Starbucks themselves actually set that up? My connection name is ‘MikeTysonPunchOuter,’ but that doesn’t mean I’ve punched out Mike Tyson.
- Practicing a little bit of self control! If you wouldn’t write the information down and hand it to the person next to you, consider waiting until you get to a secure WiFi network you know. At the very least don’t sign into your bank accounts, PayPal, or any other account where you deal with money directly.
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| VPN Security |
Finding free WiFi, and using it safely, no matter where your social marketing takes you is possible if you have the right apps, and the right tactics. Having all the free Internet possible won’t seem to matter anymore when you, or your company, get taken for thousands of dollars in lost profits and data.
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| Guest Author/Blogger |
Marcus is the online security analyst for the Best VPN Provider’s Internet Security Blog. You can find him there every Wednesday with the latest news from the world of online information security. For the Twitter lovers, follow @bestvpns for updates all day.
Thats our look on "Finding and Using Free WiFi Safely Anywhere You Go",
Apps and tips to find free WiFi networks just about anywhere you go and How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi Networks using VPN's.
Got any of your own Wi-Fi tips to share? Let us know in the comments.
