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Public Wi-Fi at some Cedar Fair parks now injects extra ads


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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/11/prweb13849482.htm

 

Just another reason to avoid public Wi-Fi altogether. I'd rather pay for extra data through Verizon than put up with this crap.

 

While Adblock Plus does exist for Android, it's annoying to install because Google won't allow it on the Play Store. Also, unless your device is rooted, it requires manual proxy configuration separately on every Wi-Fi network you connect to and doesn't work at all on data. So I choose to sigh and not bother with it.

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It is my understanding that https (secure) connections should be unaffected by this. In addition if you have subscribe to a VPN service all connections should be immune. Prices vary but $40 a year seems standard and sometimes they have sales this time of year. Last year I got mine for for $29 and works on all platforms. Very easy to use just open the app and flip a toggle, 10 seconds latter your IP can originate from any of a couple dozen countries throughout the world.

In my opinion something like this should be used on all public wifi connections and I am not suggesting it specifically for CF public wifi. Of course using a service such as this would likely disable some of the functionality of the CF park specific apps.

I am sure others here that have more detailed knowledge of the technology can offer some other suggestions.

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Yeah, I thought for a long time the Mobile Strike ad was originating on KIC, I guess because it was typically the only site I visited at KI. Then one day when my husband was at the park with me he nearly had a heart attack when the ad showed up on our business page (which isn't supposed to have any ads). He thought the site had been hacked or something until we put two and two together and realized it was coming from KI's wifi.

I would by far rather have the wifi availability with ads, than not have wifi at all when I'm at the park. Plus I got a handful of front of the line passes throughout the summer from downloading and playing Mobile Strike, so it was a good partnership as far as I'm concerned.

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It is my understanding that https (secure) connections should be unaffected by this.

That is correct; the public key encryption used by those types of connections prevents a third party from injecting ads or otherwise changing the page. More & more websites these days are using https, limiting the impact of injected ads.

Rolling out park-wide wifi was expensive; allowing their vendor to turn on this "feature" would be offsetting that cost.

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In Apple's infinite wisdom they do not seem to provide a visual means to determine if you are connected over a secure connection with Safari on an iPhone of iPad, not even in the address bar. So as I type this I cannot be certain if KIC uses https, unless I go to a desktop and verify. Thanks Apple. Something to keep in mind.

My opinion on the whole thing is I really don't mind the idea of having ads thrown at me in exchange for the use of free wifi, what I don't like is the other data they have the ability to collect.

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