Great idea but wish it was a shorter url. I use cnn.com because it's quick to type even on mobile.
NeverSSL
41–50 of 212 posts
Re: NeverSSL
#42I've been using bing.com for this, but this will probably replace that.
Re: NeverSSL
#43It's sad, because these are the kinds of things that confuse the hell out of "common folk" and explaining requires explaining HTTPS, HSTS, how captive WiFi portals work, and then ultimately, why there isn't a better solution... which maybe doesn't have a great answer. I feel like this "workaround" site is designed to draw attention to the problem at hand more than it is meant to be useful for the task at hand?
This isn't generally a problem on smartphones and tablets because they can usually detect captive portals and prompt the user appropriately.
Re: NeverSSL
#44This is handy. I was at an airport and was helping numerous people with android devices get through the wifi portals, and dealing with the same frustrating failure of the captive-portal redirect. Android is supposed to detect that there's a redirect and give you a notification that takes you to the login page, but it's very inconsistent. I usually use Xkcd for that purpose, one of the few lightweight non-ssl sites I…
I bought unencryptedwebsite.com last week after running into the same problem without knowing that neverssl.com exists. I still have to set it up, though. Too bad I'm lazy. :/
Re: NeverSSL
#45It's sad, because these are the kinds of things that confuse the hell out of "common folk" and explaining requires explaining HTTPS, HSTS, how captive WiFi portals work, and then ultimately, why there isn't a better solution... which maybe doesn't have a great answer. I feel like this "workaround" site is designed to draw attention to the problem at hand more than it is meant to be useful for the task at hand?
> why there isn't a better solution... There is a better solution: No captive portals.
What would you suggest for the case of someone wanting payment for the connection?
Like it or not, a lot of places do that.
Re: NeverSSL
#46This is handy. I was at an airport and was helping numerous people with android devices get through the wifi portals, and dealing with the same frustrating failure of the captive-portal redirect. Android is supposed to detect that there's a redirect and give you a notification that takes you to the login page, but it's very inconsistent. I usually use Xkcd for that purpose, one of the few lightweight non-ssl sites I…
I bought unencryptedwebsite.com last week after running into the same problem without knowing that neverssl.com exists. I still have to set it up, though. Too bad I'm lazy. :/
Ask the owner of neverssl.com if you can redirect the domain to them until it lapses. That way it might see at least some use. :)
Re: NeverSSL
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why there isn't a better solution... There is a better solution: No captive portals.
What would you suggest for the case of someone wanting payment for the connection? Like it or not, a lot of places do that.
put the payment url on a sign, just enforce an ip whitelist until customer has paid. Or in extreme sign-less situations put it in the ssid e.g. "pay at portalpage.com"
Re: NeverSSL
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why there isn't a better solution... There is a better solution: No captive portals.
What would you suggest for the case of someone wanting payment for the connection? Like it or not, a lot of places do that.
WPA/WPA2 Enterprise supports a multi user environment. You can require a unique login per user and thus associate payment with that. It also alleviates the problem with mac address whitelisting.
Re: NeverSSL
#49I was just thinking about this today! The New York Times had been my go to site but that won't work anymore. This is perfect!
Re: NeverSSL
#50I really wish there was a standard way of handling captive wifi portals, macOS and GNOME try to detect these portals and show them but sometimes it is unreliable. It'd be really nice if there was a reserved DNS entry (like captive.portal or something) that operating systems could try to resolve and if it points to anything other than an expected value (loopback address, maybe?) it will bring up a window to sign into…
There is; both Router Advertisements and DHCP include options for captive portals[1]. In the case of DHCP for example, the DHCP server can send the URI of the portal, which the OS can display to the user. The mechanism in [1] is what OS X uses, I believe. [1]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7710
I think OS X opens captive.apple.com