Use Safari to Connect to Free Wifi Networks From Mac
How to properly active Captive Portals
This has happened to me more than once and I’m sure other people will have a similar experience. You are at Starbucks or at a hotel that has free WiFi and when you try to connect to it, you get connected but can’t access the internet. You open Google Chrome, hit refresh multiple times, restart browser or Mac thinking that there is some connection issue but to no avail.
The issue as it turns out is due to the fact that if Google Chrome is set as your default browser instead of Safari on Mac, it doesn’t automatically redirect to the landing pages of these networks sometimes called Captive Portals. Many of these free WiFi networks have a welcome page that you need to see and accept terms before you can access the rest of the Internet. And for some reason, Chrome fails to properly redirect.
All you have to do to fix this is to open Safari and go to any website such as Google and you will immediately be redirected to their welcome/landing page where you need to click accept.
Happy browsing!
