Wifi Safety?

[Vic Mackey]

Hi all,

Just got my Incredible a week ago and was wondering about wifi safety. If I turn on Wifi is my phone still safe? Like what I mean is can someone else on Wifi see my browsing or use my bandwidth? Sorry for the dumb question but this is my first smartphone and ive never used Wifi before.

The reason I wanted to try Wifi is that trying to watch HD youtube videos is painful. The buffering is soooo slow even when im at -60 strength(lower is better right?) It buffers about 10 seconds then stops or sometimes will get halfway and then stop. The program isn't frozen, it just doesn't seem to be buffering.

Thanks for the help!!!

 

[andrew_ja]

Wifi simply means that you are looking for Wifi hotspots to connect to. (When you put your phone as a Hotspot, that is called Tethering). Whether anyone can see what you are doing is up to the Wireless network you connect to. Generally speaking, if you need to input a passcode to gain access to the network, nobody will be able to come across and observe what you are doing. Unprotected Wifi networks are generally sketchy; anyone can access them and, yes, if they want, they can get information that you send from it. But, it is not like they are gaining access to your computer. Just the information sent from and to the computer. There are some vulnerabilities to even password protected networks, however, most of them are so involved that there really needs to be someone out there to get you to go through the trouble.

That said, if you connect to a Wifi network, your phone will use that network instead of 3G when you are in range of it. Constantly leaving your Wifi on will result in faster battery usage, however, might result in faster speeds depending on the internet connection the Wifi is hooked onto.

Hope that helps!

 

[Vic Mackey]

thanks for the reply! I suppose I'll ask this here instead of making a new thread... I set up my yahoo email account but to get it to work the security has to be set to none instead of SSL or TSL. Is it safe to check my email with that option turned off?? Thanks!