In 2018 alone, more than 40 million people visited the city and most of them used the city’s free Wi-Fi network to get around the city and learn about its major attractions, nightlife and much more.
While free Wi-Fi comes with convenience such as giving users the ability to stream their content, access restricted sites and much more, it’s worth mentioning that free Wi-Fi networks are unsafe.
With so many people connecting on the unsecured Wi-Fi networks, the online risks get significantly higher. While you might argue that you’re on the free Wi-Fi for just a few minutes, it only takes a matter of seconds to tap on your device and view your online activities.
It doesn’t matter if you’re only browsing the web and not accessing your social accounts or banking details as your privacy is at stake and that alone should be a reason enough to secure your Internet activities.
Whatever the situation may be, your data might get monitored and shared with marketing agencies for ads targeting. On the other hand, it would be detrimental if a hacker were to install spyware on your device.
It's true that free Wi-Fi networks attract several people which unintentionally attracts hackers as well. Since their nature is to provide internet access to anybody who connects to the network, there’s no security at all. With no defense mechanism, no passwords, nor any form of encryption. This makes free Wi-Fi hotspots unsafe.
Online privacy is the most sensitive yet crucial element of engaging online. If your internet habits aren’t private, meaning you’ve got location services on all the time, you frequently share private details of your life on social media, then you have already said goodbye to privacy.
To protect yourself on free Wi-Fi, you must make a habit of limiting your online footprints and make sure you’ve got encryption covering your online tracks. Encryption will encode your internet activities, rendering them of no use to anyone.
Even if a hacker manages to hack on a free Wi-Fi network, encryption will keep your online activity safe and sound, meaning you can continue streaming, sharing files, accessing restricted sites and much more without any inconvenience.
A virtual private network, or VPN, is a tool that applies encryption on to your network traffic using secure protocols. As a result, whatever you browse or do online is hidden from prying eyes.
The best VPN for that matter is PureVPN, which employs military grade 256-bit encryption along with strict protocols to safeguard you against hackers. All your internet requests get encrypted and channeled through the VPN server which secures your online presence.
Moreover, your internet activities cannot be traced back to you since you're behind an anonymous IP address which replaces your real IP.
Here’s a list of the locations where you can access free Wi-Fi in Philadelphia: