Cybersecurity For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 22

Ten Ways to Safely Use Public Wi-Fi

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using cellular connections instead of public Wi-Fi

Using public Wi-Fi appropriately

Protecting yourself when using public Wi-Fi

Until relatively recently, there were many occasions during which someone might reasonably want to use public Wi-Fi for connecting to the Internet.

Until the arrival of 4G (the fourth generation of cellular networks), which has since been replaced by the even-more-advanced 5G, for example, the speed of Wi-Fi connections typically dwarfed the speed of cellular connections. Likewise in many locations, cellular connections were not available, and even if they were, they were only available from phones and cellular-enabled tablets, not from laptops. Furthermore, cellular data plans were typically expensive, especially for travelers leaving the service areas of their providers, so even if you could share your cellphone connection with your laptop, there were financial reasons not to do so.

Today, however, the situation has changed. 4G is ubiquitous, and even faster 5G is available in most areas, making cellular connections fast enough for nearly all types of online activities conducted by the typical ...