Learning To Share Your Wi-Fi

Wanna share your Wi-Fi? Now you can, and with three choices to boot.

The Whisher beta software is available for download and can operate with most, if not all, Wi-Fi routers or access points. Users must register their Wi-Fi network and to do so, they would need to disclose its name, physical address, and WEP or WPA encryption key (Whisher demands that networks be encrypted), which will go to a database containing information of other Whisher members’ networks. Through the database, Whisher members can locate and log on to each other’s networks for free but they need not worry that other members will see their key since this is only known by the software. Beware, however, of the possibility of network slowdown because controlling the volume of of wireless bandwidth used by Whisher members is impossible.

FON is another option. Unlike Whisher, sharing WiFi through FON is not for free — you need to buy the La Fonera router, which is sold for $40 or half the price if referred by existing FON members — but you can limit the amount of bandwidth use. Plus, you may earn a few bucks since FON allows users to impose a $3 daily fee or $10 for five days for network use, though you can only get less than half of that, after deducting FON’s share and Paypal’s fee, on top of surrendering your free access to other FON networks.

If security is of high importance to you, then WeFi may not be your best choice. The software, which is in beta, works on non-encrypted networks, and at present, with Windows XP only.
Via [wi-fiplanet.com]

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