Public Wi-Fi

The old advice about café Wi-Fi is largely out of date. Nearly every site and app now encrypts what you send, so the person at the next table is not reading your email.

What has not gone away is that whoever runs the network decides where you can go and what you get told. A hostile network can block things, redirect you somewhere convincing, or push a page asking you to sign in again. So the risk has moved from eavesdropping to misdirection. Be suspicious of anything a network asks you for, and if you do something that matters, your phone's own connection is simpler than trusting a stranger's.