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Show HN: 500,000 free WiFi hotspots plotted around the world
- techaddict009 11y agoWhat is the source of this data? As I see my tier 3 city also has few free wifi listed here.
- rgawdzik 11y agoWe aggregated from a bunch of private sources.
- chinathrow 11y agoLike what?
- basvdwollenberg 11y agoI've seen some I added myself with Instabridge (another WiFi sharing app), the location of some of the networks are wrong because the app messed up sometimes (my school network is also located at my house for example).
- Ao7bei3s 11y agoProbably gathered from the app of https://meshable.io/ https://meshable.io/? The website is light on details, but it's probably a commercial WiFi-sharing company, like a commercial version of Freifunk (a mostly german initiative where people openly share their WiFi, and meshing is used to extend coverage when a direct internet uplink isn't available), with the interesting twist that they're using an app instead of a custom WiFi access point firmware. I wonder if they route traffic through open Wifis if any are in the vicinity and then charge for it.
- lukasm 11y agoHow do I zoom out?
- vinay427 11y agoA point of constructive criticism is that there are some inconsistencies in how large-scale public WiFi seems to be handled. For instance, in Ann Arbor, MI every University of Michigan building AFAIK has free public WiFi (as well as a private network for university affiliates). However, I only see a few listings for the "MGuest" network in the area. Is there a better feasible way of handling this?
- notdang 11y agoIf an WiFi hotspot doesn't have a password doesn't mean it's free.
- alexcroox 11y agoAgreed, in the UK The Cloud isn't free
- dave2000 11y agoYes it is.
- ropiku 11y agoYou need to signup & login but the account is free. Unlike Openzone or others which are not free (in $) for everyone.
- jon-wood 11y agoThe Cloud is particularly awkward as sometimes it's free, but not always. I assume in the places it's free the people running the hotspot are paying rather than the end user.
- jon-wood 11y agoThe Cloud is particularly awkward as sometimes it's free, but not always. I assume in the places it's free the people running the hotspot are paying rather than the end user.
- icebraining 11y agoYeap. Fonera APs are everywhere here in Portugal, but if you don't have one yourself, prepare your credit card.
- fla 11y agoAre those providing internet access, or just unprotected networks ?
- detaro 11y agopretty sure the latter. I've seen printers, chromecasts, ...
- rorykoehler 11y agoUnprotected networks.... the one near me in Singapore requires a local national id card for login
- RKearney 11y agoSearching by zip code zooms the map into areas 20-40 miles outside of the actual area code. At least that was my experience with the 2 that I tried.
- rgawdzik 11y agoTry by street; We are using Mapbox's geocoding API so it's a bit inaccurate compared to Google's.
- lucb1e 11y agoIn case anyone can't find the Netherlands, I could understand why: http://i.snag.gy/7vbiZ.jpg http://i.snag.gy/7vbiZ.jpg This also explains why I'm so frustrated with WiFi abroad: I probably got spoiled here. Here we can find WiFi in the most unlikely of places (e.g. supermarkets, buses); in Germany you can find one in a coffee shop if you're lucky, but that one is probably paid as well, just like all the other ones.
- dnlrn 11y agoWhat also hinders open Wi-Fi adoption in Germany is a law called "Störerhaftung", which basically states that the owner of the Wi-Fi is liable for all damages that users of his Wi-Fi do, for example filesharing, hacking, whatever. Keeping track of all users is not an option that all free Wi-Fi operators have. I'm sure other countries have similar laws. Do The Netherlands not have such a law?
- pyvpx 11y agoI just came across Airfy which apparently gets around this by tunnelling (I assume) all traffic and taking all legal liability and risk. I've also read that this Stoererhaftung law is set to change this year, specifically to allow things like free WiFi in businesses.
- thesimon 11y agoIIRC there is an exception in the law for ISPs and Airfy registered as an ISP.
- jon-wood 11y agoWe're starting to see similar things in the UK. All our local bus companies now provide WiFi (and one has USB charging ports at every seat as well), and most large chain shops will provide WiFi. I never really use them myself as I have a pretty good data call on my mobile plan, but I know of some people who've dropped data entirely because they can just use WiFi.
- glossyscr 11y agoWrong question. I don't care where I can find free WiFi. Nowadays, every damn coffee shop, hotel or mall has free Wifi—I care about fast and free WiFi with speedy up- & downloads and low latency. Well executed implementation though. EDIT: Why the downvote?
- rgawdzik 11y agoYup, 100% agree. We actually know the speeds of a minority of these APs. We'll be bumping them up in the searches + advertising their speeds soon.
- glossyscr 11y agoSounds great and looking forward!
- icebraining 11y agoEDIT: Why the downvote? I didn't downvote you, but your post did sound rude to me. Finding free wifi may be easy where you live, but it's not the "wrong question" for many others. I live in an European country, and while the bigger cities are well served, smaller towns and rural areas often only have one place, if that. If I didn't have a Fonera account, I'd be spending a lot of time looking for hotspots.
- mightybyte 11y agoI don't care about fast nearly as much as I care about it not having ridiculous hoops I have to jump through to get connected. I just want to connect to the network and be on without having to first have my requests intercepted by their system until I register or click "connect". I suppose maybe this falls under "well executed implementation", but I think it deserves to be mentioned specifically.
- eccstartup 11y agoThe map is really, really hard to zoom in and out.
- wging 11y agoI'd love to see this adjusted for population density -- what does a high wifi hotspots/person tell you? Maybe just that the area is wealthier. So what if you adjust for wealth too?
- maxerickson 11y agoIn my area the data set isn't worth doing that with. It misses places that have free wifi and includes what looks like a personal cellular AP.
- ryanmarsh 11y agoImpressive bit of work but I couldn't help but think the title should be: Show HN: 500,000 free places to get hacked plotted around the world
- titusnicolae 11y agohttps://location.services.mozilla.com/ https://location.services.mozilla.com/
- jjawssd 11y agoThis is not mapping free WiFi hotspots. This is mapping open Wifi hotspots. They are not the same. For example, KPN in the Netherlands is not free, and xfinity wifi in the USA is not free. For this to have any sort of credibility, there needs to be a discriminant filter mapping truly free vs open hotspots. For me this current map is too noisy to be of value. Try using it for free internet, and you too may run into disillusionment and frustration.
- rgawdzik 11y agoYou are right. I already removed the xfinity hotspots. We'll be adding a feedback form into our web + mobile app so non-free or low quality APs can be removed.
- hmpc 11y agoYou can also remove all the "STCP | PortoDigital" networks in Porto, Portugal, which are WiFi hotspots in the public buses. Interesting map! (Disclaimer: I work for the company who implemented that network.)
- benbristow 11y agoAlso 'BTOpenzone/BT WiFi/BT FON' networks in the UK. Absolute rips as well for price.
- 4lejandrito 11y agoNice work! This reminds me to something I tried a while ago: https://wiffinity.com https://wiffinity.com They basically provide the same thing but as a crowdsourced list of truly free hotspots and you can connect to them through the app. Only available as a native app though...
- DebraHart7 11y agovery good site!
- sinak 11y agoLooks really great - love the web view of WiFi density, and great to see more efforts in this space. We've built something similar at OpenSignal. Our WifiMapper [1] app on iOS and Android has a database of over 2 million networks, and we're also crowdsourcing a database of passwords and connection speeds. [1] https://www.wifimapper.com/ https://www.wifimapper.com/
- fineIllregister 11y agoI'm always glad to see maps using OpenStreetMap data over Google Maps. I always find it fun to look over the edits I've made, and it helps point out where more detail would be useful for different use cases.
- kristopolous 11y agoI've had two open ones for years that didn't make the map :(.
- babuskov 11y agoNice to see a Starbucks hotspot in the middle of Thames river (London)... doesn't show the depth ;)
- bobzilla42 11y ago239,989,522 wifi networks: https://wigle.net https://wigle.net
- greggman 11y agoA problem with wigle (and maybe others) it it's showing every portable mobile wifi hotspot which are extremely common in Japan. If you're trying to find all the places someone who owns that hotspot has been maybe that's useful info but usually it's not that useful. Zoomed in to the maximum level there's so many SSIDs it's unreadable.
- cbd1984 11y agoIs it really free if you're using a hotspot named NETGEAR? Because I'm assuming that one isn't really open on purpose. EDIT: Removed part about trailer court. I was wrong. That's actually a restaurant next to a trailer court. Nice place, too.
- codingdave 11y agoBad data set. You are missing most of the free wifi spots in my town, but do show a number of people who just haven't secured their routers.
- ygmelnikova 11y agoNot seeing McDonald's. There's another 35,000 for you.
- GigabyteCoin 11y agoI am redirected to https://meshable.io/map https://meshable.io/map which is a blank page. I even disabled uBlock and refreshed the page and still saw nothing. All I can see if a hand for a cursor, and my right click button is disabled to even check on the source.
- rgawdzik 11y agoI forwarded this problem to Mapbox, thanks for letting me know!
- geografa 11y agoIs your browser compatible? http://caniuse.com/#search=gl http://caniuse.com/#search=gl
- GigabyteCoin 11y agoApparently not. I am using the latest Firefox which is only partially compatible with webgl.
- thrillgore 11y agoNot all of these Wifi APs are "Free" and its partial in a lot of spots. Still, good effort.
- danjayh 11y agoAny theories on why China has a notably less dense distribution?
- kalleboo 11y agoThis isn't working for me, after I zoom in past a certain level, all the blue dots just disappear. Clicking a city name search result zooms in so far that the map goes blank (presumably it's past the available tile sets) Tested in Safari and Chrome
- unholygoat 11y agoHmmm I get the feeling that one of your 'sources' for the db comes from the users who have already installed your app. Just a tin-foil-hat hunch based on the density of nodes in certain areas (read: certain routes). Too bad 60%+ are HP-Printers or vmguests...either way it'd pay to clean all that up if you're promoting that they're free/open hotspots.