Take your laptop on the road, connect to a wireless network whilst you're waiting for your train and you may be forgiven for browsing your regular sites, accessing your email and writing other personal correspondence. The problem is that the person who owns this wireless network could, in theory, access the traffic from those connected to this network. Unlikely, but it could happen. There's also the chance that people could attempt to sniff traffic accessing wireless networks if they are serious hackers.

Hotspot Shield 1.04 is a free tool that will enable you to safeguard your access to a wireless network by using a secure tunnel to provide security for everything that you send/receive whilst you are connected. However, it's limited to 3GB of bandwidth per month, which should be enough for most laptop users.

Hotspot Shield link.

29 May 2008