this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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European Commission has a "Wifi4EU" initative, provides 93k high-speed private access points across the EU, free of charge. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25779751

The intative promises to be privacy-friendly with no tracking. Stating:

Your privacy is important. The WiFi4EU app ensures a private online experience with no tracking or data collection. Simply connect and enjoy free public Wi-Fi without concerns.

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/wifi4eu-citizens

Will be interesting to see how this spans and plays out in reality. Looks promising too, did a quick scan of their builtin permissions and trackers and looks good too. (Scanning tool is called Exodus)

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[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 71 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Title is wrong. It's an old initiative, not even funded anymore. Ran from 2018 to 2020 with 120 Million EUR.

[–] AlsaValderaan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 6 days ago

A bit offtopic about a pet peeve of mine, but this is why it'd be super nice if social media that end up getting screenshot had absolute timestamps. Thank you for letting us know.

[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

my bad! I misread the context and had not heard of it before - yet living in the EU. I will change the title. I got confused as I saw their post on LinkedIn, and it was posted recently: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-commission_wifi4eu-activity-7359136374895046656-oXYi

[–] viking@infosec.pub 7 points 6 days ago

It's still active as in, they maintain the hotspots. But I just had a look at the map, and it looks like there's spotty service mostly clustered around tiny villages, rather than providing coverage to areas that actual get significant tourism or other visitors.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

One of their access points has saved my skin twice now in the past 2 months, so I'm happy it exists.

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

35E/month per access point for 3 years, it's not too bad if they got actual use, if that means where ever you go there will be free internet at hand that can be relied upon and that will even save the precious RF bandwidth of cell phone towers and reduces cell phone subscription by an equivalent amount

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

if that means where ever you go there will be free internet at hand that can be relied upon

Yeah if that were the case it could be useful. Unfortunately the map looks pretty bad: https://wifi4eu.ec.europa.eu/#/list-accesspoints

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They seem pretty evenly distributed to me ?

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sure there are a few everywhere, but the big gaps are the issue.

For example in your screenshot if you zoom in on Poitiers you'll see there are none there, only in the two northern neighbor communes Neuville de Poitou and Jaunay-Clan. Similar for Nantes, none there, they are all in Saint-Sébastien-Sur-Loire and Thouaré-sur-Loire, the center and all the other suburbs have nothing.

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[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 27 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Leaving the EU is one of the stupidest self harming things we ever did.

[–] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Who are you?

[–] 46_and_2@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago

UK if I have to guess.

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

I'm the former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Tony Blair. Who are you?

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And I'm glad that the UK left the EU, because now the EU has its own Cuba in front of its shores. Makes life more interesting, doesn't it?

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I'll not sure I see the parallel.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ahh yes, border free travel.. wait a minute, why are the Austrian police on the border here? Wait a minute, why are they stopping us..

[–] themurphy@lemmy.ml 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Because it's border free travel for EU citizens. It's still another country you enter, as of course, there are rules.

They stop you to check. You obviously pass through.

Also, there's still illegal import rules.

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 6 days ago

It's still schengen rules, so if you take a train the likelihood of being stopped at the border is pretty low. Austria may have border agents board the train and verify passports, but that's still pretty uncommon in Europe.

[–] hmmm@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago

I want to be European so bad.

[–] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

But why an App & not a PWA ?

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why not both?

[–] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

PWAs are easy to maintain & lightweight

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not saying they aren't, just that a lot of folks will probably search their phone's app store and if they don't see it assume it doesn't exist for their phone.

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[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago

Would have been nice indeed, however there is a web version: https://wifi4eu.ec.europa.eu/#/list-accesspoints

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