Facebook testing feature that shows you where to find free Wi-Fi

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Facebook is quietly rolling out a new feature within its mobile app that will help you find the nearest public WiFi networks you can access for free. First spotted by The Next Web’s Matt Navarra in the iOS app, the feature is still in an early testing stage so for now it’s available to a limited number of users in select countries. For those that have it the option is listed as “Find WiFi" within the menu options in the Facebook app. Toggling the setting will prompt you to allow location services and from there you’ll be able to see places nearby with an access point, the network name, business information and directions.

The Next Web notes that Facebook started asking Pages to list Wi-Fi locations at their physical addresses a few months ago, so this seems to be the backbone that the information is built on.

Facebook confirmed the feature with a short statement, “To help people stay connected to the friends and experiences they care about, we are rolling out a new feature that surfaces open Wi-Fi networks associated with nearby places.” Find WiFi could be useful for people in emerging markets where mobile data is slow or expensive, people who don’t want to incur heavy roaming charges when traveling internationally, and otherwise pretty much anyone that doesn’t want to eat up their data allowance while using data intensive features like broadcasting through Facebook Live.

This isn’t the first time has experimenting with the idea of facilitating Wi-Fi access. Two years ago, the company partnered with Cisco in a pilot program that offered free internet access in participating businesses in exchange for a check in. It has also launched the controversial Free Basics service, which offers a free but limited internet access to people who don’t have it, and is testing infrastructure such as satellites and solar-powered drones to beam the internet direct to remote communities.

header image credit: Venturebeat

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After all the free hot-spots are saturated with free-loaders, they find fewer hot-spots allowing free service. This is not a good idea. The hot-spots can advertise their free services for themselves.
 
After all the free hot-spots are saturated with free-loaders, they find fewer hot-spots allowing free service. This is not a good idea. The hot-spots can advertise their free services for themselves.
It could be handy but why use FB to find them? Your phone can do that all by itself and tell you, just as long as you're within range of the hotspot.
 
It could be handy but why use FB to find them? Your phone can do that all by itself and tell you, just as long as you're within range of the hotspot.

Same reason you use google to search things and techspot for news, it is handy but why use google or techspot? you can do all that by yourself just as long as you know where the library and your within range of it.
 
Same reason you use google to search things and techspot for news, it is handy but why use google or techspot? you can do all that by yourself just as long as you know where the library and your within range of it.
TS is now a search engine? Well whaddaya know.
 
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