Get Free Wi-fi at Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Other AT&T Hotspots
/* Posted May 2nd, 2008 at 10:57am *//* Filed under Apple, iPhone */
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AT&T has been promising free wi-fi access to all iPhone users at its 71,000 hotspot locations including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, McDonald’s, and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Recently, they made good on that promise and many AT&T hotspots are now providing a custom iPhone formatted page for iPhone users to browse to, where you simply need to enter in your mobile number for free access. The picture above was snapped by MacRumors, confirming that this was indeed true at a local Barnes & Noble.
This is great and all for iPhone users but what about the rest of us who want wi-fi? Well you can cough up the $3.99 for two hours at Starbucks, or you can simply modify your browser’s user agent. The user agent identifies your browser to web servers so they can serve you custom pages for your browser. This is how Facebook mobile for iPhone knows you are browsing from an iPhone, because the Safari browser’s user agent identifies itself as the iPhone version. If you’re using your laptop, changing the user agent is very simple in Safari. Simply go to Preferences > Advanced and enable “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” Then set Develop Menu > User Agent to “Mobile Safari 1.1.3 – iPhone.” On Firefox, download the user agent switcher add-on.
After tricking AT&T into thinking you’re browsing with an iPhone, simply enter in the number of a valid iPhone AT&T mobile number (hint: know any of your friends with an iPhone?). For those who have unlocked iPhones and are using T-Mobile, you won’t even need to change the user agent since it’s already correct. Just enter in your friend’s valid number (please make sure you ask before you try, you don’t want to drag them down with you if you plan on getting caught).
I haven’t been able to test this out myself with either Safari or Firefox, but it’s been confirmed to work on Safari with screenshot proof below:
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[...] custom formatted page for your iPhone and enter in your mobile number. If you don’t have an iPhhttp://www.coderetard.com/2008/05/02/get-free-wi-fi-at-starbucks-barnes-noble-other-att-hotspots/THE LANGDELL HOMESTEAD AUCTION BARN Saturday JUNE 28, 2008 10:00 … – Antiques and Arts [...]
I tried this at a starbucks. I was able to get the free Internet on my iPhone but on my laptop, after switching the iPhone user agent in safari, I still did not get the free wifi option.