How is free wifi in your area? I visited two different Walmart stores where they typically have fast wifi, but today there was no internet connection given to my notebook, but they did allow a connection on my cell phone. I expect a communications blackout to hit soon. (My location: Arkansas, USA)

submitted by In-the-clouds from i.imgur.com

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]quantum-step 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Could it be a captive portal? Where it redirects every web page to their portal and you gotta agree to their terms of service before using their wifi.
The sys admin could just block whatever website your notebook uses as a connectivity check. I block everything Microsoft and Apple on my home network, and the wifi icon says I'm offline right now. People that use the ad blocking dns server pi-hole often get told their offline while streaming videos over the internet because of this.

Sources: https://pi-hole.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal

[–]In-the-clouds[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Walmart stores in my city have not required any portals, redirects, or TOS agreements any of the other times I have used their service. (McDonald's does, though.)