by Charles Miller

When traveling with your laptop, smart phone, and/or other portable devices there is something you are bound to encounter sooner or later when you try to go online. When using the "guest" Wi-Fi at many hotels and other public locations where free Wi-Fi might be provided you will sometimes encounter a "captive portal."

A captive portal is a web page that users are automatically directed to when they connect to the free Wi-Fi. Unlike when you are at home, if you connect to free Wi-Fi that uses a captive portal you can expect your computer or portable device to behave a bit differently. For example, when you are at home using your own Wi-Fi you might be accustomed to having your computer or device automatically open your email inbox when you click on that icon. When you travel it could be a bit confusing when you tap on that same icon expecting to see your email inbox; but rather than that you end up looking at some strange new page that says something like "Welcome to the Marriot Hotel." This page you never saw before is what is called a captive portal.

When connecting to a free public Wi-Fi you can be fooled into thinking there is no internet connection when there actually is. If your device is telling you it is connected to the internet but nothing seems to work, it is very possible a captive portal is waiting for you to find it and log in. Probably the most reliable way to find the captive portal is to open your web browser then try to load a web site you rarely or never visit. This is to prevent your computer or mobile device displaying a saved copy of a frequently-visited web site from its "cache" because that can create the impression you are online when you are not (yet).

Captive portals are commonly used in public places like airports, hotels, cafes, and businesses where it is desirable to control and manage the network, often to protect the Wi-Fi provider from liability, or just to prevent every Tom, Dick, and Harry from using the free Wi-Fi.

Once you have found the captive portal page it will often require users to perform some action, such as logging in with your hotel room number, or sometimes just, clicking on "I accept" to a terms of service agreement. The airlines seem to still be big on using their captive portal to collect your payment by credit card for using high-priced in-flight connectivity. It is probably best I do not start ranting about how cruise ships charge passengers for every click.

To give you an example of a real-world experience I just had with a captive portal: While waiting for a flight I had time to spend a bit of time reading the news if I could access the internet from my laptop. When I looked at the available Wi-Fi signals I spotted one named "Free Wi-Fi" and connected to it. I was most definitely not going to check my email or log on to my bank web site, so I was not concerned with security. When I clicked on the icon that usually took me to my favorite news site… nothing. So, I manually timed in "aol.com" which is a site I never use. Up popped a page I had never seen before, and it was not aol.com. It said "Welcome to the airport's free Wi-Fi" once I found that page it was easy enough to follow its instructions and access the free Wi-Fi.

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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