Is public Wi-Fi safe?

Because nearly every website now encrypts what you send and receive, so the network in between only passes along scrambled data. The US Federal Trade Commission puts it plainly:

"Because of the widespread use of encryption, connecting through a public Wi-Fi network is usually safe."

The numbers back this up. In Chrome, pages on public websites load over HTTPS 98% of the time on Windows and more than 99% of the time on Android and Mac.[2]Across 16.2 million websites crawled in July 2025, 98.8% of requests from mobile pages used HTTPS.[3]

Less than most people think on an encrypted site, but not nothing. This is what another person on the network, or whoever runs it, can see in three situations:

The site names stay visible on an encrypted site because your device looks them up and announces them before the encryption starts. A VPN hides them from the network, but the VPN service handles them instead. Recent iPhones and Android phones also use a different, random Wi-Fi address on each network, so the network can't easily recognise the same device elsewhere.[10][11]

Fake hotspots are the main one. Anyone can name a network "Airport Free WiFi". In Australia, a man was charged in 2024 with setting up fake free Wi-Fi networks at airports in Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide and on domestic flights; people who joined were shown a sign-in page that asked for their email or social media logins.[5] He was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison.[6]

Sites and apps that don't encrypt. They're rare now, but anything sent without encryption can be read by others on the network.

Your own device. File sharing that's switched on, or a device that hasn't been updated, can be reached by others on the same network.

The padlock doesn't make a site honest. Encryption protects the connection, not you from a scam site; check the address before you sign in.

Check the network's name with the staff before you join, as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency advises: "Always confirm the name and password of a public Wi-Fi hotspot prior to use."[4]Be wary of two networks with nearly the same name, an open network where the venue's real one has a password, and any sign-in page that asks for more than an email address or a room number.

Yes, if you want your browsing to stay private on a network you don't control. Microsoft's own advice is: "If you have to use a public Wi-Fi network you should consider using a Virtual Private Network (VPN)."[8]Germany's Federal Office for Information Security says to use public Wi-Fi only with caution and that a VPN can add security there.[9]

A VPN encrypts everything between your device and the VPN service, including the site names the network would otherwise see, so you're also covered if you join a fake hotspot by mistake. Choose the provider with care, because it handles what the network no longer sees. As the same office puts it: "Generally, selecting a VPN provider comes down to trust."[7]

Generally, yes, because you don't share a local network with strangers. The German Federal Office for Information Security says: "Using public WLANs is significantly more risky than surfing using your mobile data."[7]But mobile data runs out, and laptops often have none. A VPN gives you the same kind of privacy on any Wi-Fi.