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About this tool
Score your cafe, airport or hotel Wi-Fi habits against the controls that still matter, and get the gaps ranked by impact.
The Public Wi-Fi Safety Checklist scores eleven controls that still change the outcome on a network you do not own, weights them by real impact, and scales the total by where you are and what you plan to do. It is built on how browsing works now: HTTPS already encrypts the content of nearly everything, so the meaningful risks are the ones that need your cooperation — clicking through a certificate warning, typing a Google or work password into a captive portal, installing something a portal demands, or joining a lookalike network. The output ranks your gaps by weight so you fix the two that matter instead of all eleven.
Open Public Wi-Fi Safety Checklist on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
Certificate warnings and portal credentials outrank forgetting the network, and the score says so.
The same habits score differently for casual browsing in a cafe and admin access on an unnamed open network.
It does not repeat pre-HTTPS advice about strangers reading your passwords off the air.
Far less than the old advice suggests, because almost all traffic is HTTPS and browsers now block or flag plain HTTP. The remaining risks need you to act: accepting a certificate warning, entering real credentials into a fake portal, installing a profile or app the portal asks for, or joining an evil-twin network with a copied name.
A VPN is useful but not the main control. It hides which sites you contact from the network operator and covers any stray unencrypted traffic, yet it does nothing against a phishing page, a malicious download, or credentials you type in yourself — and a free VPN app simply moves your trust to its operator.
Confirm the exact network name with staff, since an evil twin works by copying the venue's name with a small change such as an extra underscore. Be suspicious of any portal that asks for a Google, Apple or work password, or that requires you to install a certificate or app — genuine networks ask at most for a room number, ticket number or OTP.
Banking apps pin their own certificates and refuse to run over an intercepted connection, so the app itself is well protected. Even so, switching to mobile data for the transaction removes the shared network from the picture entirely, which is the simplest control available and the highest weighted item on this checklist.