Wi-fi spots where?

I hope wi-fi is the right word. I'm a total newb when it comes to wireless internet. I don't even have my new iBook yet.

Anyway I have a simple question I hope. How do you know what stores, places in a city, (so outside a store) and anywhere else have a wireless network?

Is there a website to check, like some sort of directory?

They normally have a sign up somewhere.

For example: The san francisco coffee bar near university has a sign on the counter offering wifi services free with a large beverage or for a few €'s per hour...

My university has green signs up at certain points indicating wifi coverage...

Most likely you'll just see a sign.. I don't know of any directory...


It's not EVERYWHERE (yet) as some people would like you to believe. A sales guy actually told my friend who was buying a (PC) laptop that he would be able to surf on the train all the way around town!?!

And THAT was his argument for buying an external wifi device, although there was one built-in???!!!

check out

www.wifinder.com

trpnmonkey41 said:

check out

www.wifinder.com

Click to expand...

I prefer intel.jiwire.com it gives you a rough guide to cost as well. As far as i can tell they have about the same number of hotspots listed

Aptmunich said:

It's not EVERYWHERE (yet) as some people would like you to believe. A sales guy actually told my friend who was buying a (PC) laptop that he would be able to surf on the train all the way around town!?!

And THAT was his argument for buying an external wifi device, although there was one built-in???!!!

Click to expand...

Maybe he meant Cell Phone WiFi, PCMCIA Cards with an external antenna. Which is quite expensive BTW (approx $80 to $90 a month!) - I don't know what the max data usage limit is per month for something like that (10MB, 100MB, etc)

No, he just meant plain old regular wifi.

Cell phone wifi is called UMTS over here in yurrup, and the cards are only supplied by the carriers (t-mobile, vodafone etc.), this was just your standard generic WLAN card he was trying to sell...

i work downtown in the city and there are tons of wifi spots. The corporation I work for has it but you need a WEP key to access the network. However if I just walk around outside I can link up to many unsecured wireless networks. There are three bars/cafes that have it for free but it goes to show, secure your wireless networks!

my university offers it free, but it always is quite slow - i can usually hook up to at least 3 right in my neighborhood... i know im bad

My college has it in just about every building, it would be nice if it would work outside but it doesn't. Those search sites that people posted links to are nice, but the best local place around me that has FREE wifi is Panera bread, and it isn't listed on any of those sites. If you have one of those around might want to check to see if they have it.

my friend told me of an "unauthorized" wifi war-driving page that had actual "locations" (private homes and businesses) but i am pretty sure it has been taken down because of privacy issues. that's scary... secure your networks!

code777 said:

my friend told me of an "unauthorized" wifi war-driving page that had actual "locations" (private homes and businesses) but i am pretty sure it has been taken down because of privacy issues. that's scary... secure your networks!

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always use wep and require a password for network access.

I recently spent some time in Waikiki on business. My hotel offered "limited" wireless access for $11.99/day. By limited they meant it only worked in certain rooms on certain floors. I asked for and was given one of these rooms. When I turned on my iBook, it found the Hotels network, but had issues connecting to it. Along with my hotels network, I found 5 other networks within the vicinity, 3 of them did not have WEP enabled and had no password requirement. I chose the best signal of the 3 and surfed the web for 4 or 5 days for free off some poor schmucks network. His d/l speed was 1.1Mbps. The nearest likely home for this network was a Condo complex between 500 and 1000 yards away from my hotel, unless the Burger King of the Catholic Church across the street had their own wireless setup.

My point here is, it never hurts to look. It's amazing how many open networks you can find to get on and surf from. War-Driving is alive and well and fairly entertaining.....

Hey, new poster here. I am new to the WiFi scene, but i found this site helpful, www.wardrive.net tools and there is (was) a list of notified spots!

My $.02

just use an app like macstumbler to find wireless connections that arent using wep.:mac:

Macman said:

just use an app like macstumbler to find wireless connections that arent using wep.:mac:

Click to expand...

Where can one find that? Is it freeware or shareware? Thanks

*edit* Also reading the previous link, I'm not looking to "steal airspace" to surf wirelessly. All I wanted to know is where you can surf wirelessly. From most of the sites I've read, a lot of places you need some subscription service.

Ah well I mainly want to be wireless for a small home network anyway.

www.versiontracker.com
www.macupdate.com

Two best sites to find downloads

If you are trying to find free wireless spots check out the wifinder link i posted

Macman said:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14746

Click to expand...

Kismac is better, It's a bit more professional then Macstumbler