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 1 week ago) by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

172 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] hisao@ani.social 111 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

It's mind-blowing how at the same time some EU government guys pushing stuff like DSA while other do something like this (which is nice, and a complete opposite, if it's not honeypot anyways).

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[–] LMurch@thelemmy.club 97 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That's cool. Here in the US, we're this close to banning vaccines. *sad trombone sound

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[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 71 points 1 week ago (8 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 1 week 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 1 week 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

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[–] giacomo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

oh dude, they promised to be privacy friendly! maybe I'm just too american to believe in promises.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 week ago (29 children)

You don't have to trust them any more than you trust your local Starbucks WiFi. We're at the point where your traffic should no longer be vulnerable just because you're on the wrong WiFi network.

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[–] berty@feddit.org 38 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Do you need that app to connect to a WiFi network?

[–] sivanataraja@lemmy.world 61 points 1 week ago

No, the app is just a map of the hotspots.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 12 points 1 week ago

To add to the other comment, you can see the map here.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Well I don't know if that's a good use of EU money. I'd rather see investments in large and difficult infrastructure, rail, software, datacenters, industrial sectors we're currently lacking, grid investments - stuff like that.

End user internet access is more like thousands of small decentralised projects. The coordination might make it easier to use compared to if everyone did their own free wifi project, but that's such a small benefit...

[–] Baleine@jlai.lu 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure we could invest in all of them and money wouldn't be the problem.

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[–] Epzillon@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago

If this does what it says on the box its huge

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 29 points 1 week ago (8 children)

I think this is mostly for non-EU tourists. You don't pay for roaming in EU anymore so you don't really need WiFi when traveling.

[–] TheProtagonist@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Recently mobile phone operators introduced a “fair use policy”, so it’s not really a”roam like at home” anymore, but data volumes can be limited to a fraction of what you are entitled to in your home country.

This is a point where WiFi might get more important again when traveling.

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[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 1 points 5 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 5 days ago

I'll not sure I see the parallel.

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[–] 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 1 week 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.

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[–] Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Honestly nowadays data plans are cheap on most mobile carriers and they're obligated to have them work accross EU, so you no longer really need Wi-Fi when traveling.

Also, I can see this being easily and constantly exploited via Wi-Fi attacks where hackers set up fake Hotspots with the same name as the closest legit one.