Practical PC Online - Beginner's Guides: Using Public Wireless WiFi Networks

Iain Laskey shows how to make use of public WiFi access points

Most people use their laptop or mobile phone's wireless facilities at home in conjunction with a wireless router. The router is connected to the Internet either via ADSL or cable and any devices connected to it using WiFi such as a laptop get to make use of that Internet connection. What happens if you don't have your own connection though?

Firstly, don't get tempted to use any old connection you find. First of all it might be a trap - someone trying to encourage people to connect so they can try to attack your PC but perhaps more importantly, it's illegal, in the UK for one with at least one person having been convicted of leeching off of someone else's connection.

Your options therefore are to use public connections. These tend to come in two basic flavours, free and paid for. The free ones are typically offered by coffee shops and other places where they know they'll be able to cover the costs of your usage via other means. The paid-for ones allow you to initially connect to a single web page where you can enter your credit card details and buy some time on the service - perhaps by the hour. Make sure that your browser is showing the key symbol to indicate a secure connection when entering your credit card details though. As for what is available, that really is down to where you are. Most large cities have one or more networks you can use such as The Cloud which offers unlimited monthly access for £6.99 or PAYG (Pay As You Go) although the City of London now sports free access in the Square Mile. Try Googling (in advance!) of whatever area you hope to find access such as 'Manchester WiFi' to see what's available.

In Use

So, what happens? Once your are in range of a WiFi signal, your laptop will report that it has found one or more wireless signals and you can then choose one and click on 'Connect'. Once connected, you can open your browser which will have automatically been configured to work with the new connection. This should display the details of the network you have connected to and will offer instructions for continuing - either how to pay or just confirmation you are ready to browse. It's as easy as that.

Security

One thing that becomes of vital importance when connecting to these third party networks is that of security. You can see our summary of the risks and a list of things you should do to protect yourself here but essentially it is as follows:

• Have an Anti Virus program and keep it up to date
• Have a firewall and configure it correctly
• Don't open anything suspect no matter who it came from

Anything else you can do will help but this should keep most threats at bay as long as you are also aware of what else can be done - ultimately the risk assessment is down to you as the user so makes sure you have done as much as you reasonably can.

Enjoy!

Iain Laskey
See Iain's site at www.pcbookreview.com