Got laptop. Need broadband access out of the office. A familiar predicament for road warriors everywhere, but now finding that elusive Wi-Fi hotspot has been made a good deal easier.
For Lycos has launched a database of the UK’s Wi-Fi hotspots and is offering free “sniffer” software to help with the search for access out in the field.
A free download, Wi-Fi Hotspot Finder homes in on the nearest hotspot by the user entering a postcode in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and the Philippines. (A bit of forward planning might be a good idea here as you’ll need access to find the hotspot.)
Updateable from the web, Wi-Fi Hotspot Finder lists more than 10,000 Wi-Fi connections in 1,500 towns and cities in the UK for free. Around 300 UK providers are covered, including free and paid hotspots from T-Mobile, The Cloud and BT. Users need to be running a laptop with Windows XP/2000 and a compatible Wi-Fi card.
The Hotspot Database, meanwhile, flags up, for example, 19 hotspots in Inverness alone. Hotspots not listed can be notified from the Lycos hotspot pages.
