WiFire App Review

Cellular networks being what they are in India, there are plenty of times when you end up stuck on a slow 2G connection, where nothing but WhatsApp works. And let’s face it, being offline is something most people would rather avoid. In such a situation you can either go around looking for Wi-Fi networks and try asking people to share Wi-Fi passwords, or try an app like WiFire.

WiFire finds all open Wi-Fi networks around you and helps you navigate to them. The app shows you how far you are from the nearest public Wi-Fi network and even the speed of the network. There are plenty of apps that do the same thing but some are spammy, some are scammy, and many of them don’t have a great database of Wi-Fi networks in India. WiFire is not like those apps.

We tested the app with six Wi-Fi networks in various locations across Mumbai. In our tests we observed that the app is great for locating Wi-Fi networks at railway stations, airports, and coffee shops, but it may not be the most reliable service for hotel Wi-Fi networks.

We went to two different coffee shops hunting for Wi-Fi and the connection was decent in both places. However when we saw a hotel near the airport on the app, our search for Wi-Fi was fruitless. The app said there’s a Wi-Fi network called “Orchid” but when we reached the spot, we found an open Wi-Fi network called “Hotel Bawa International” instead, which we couldn’t connect to.

We also tested the app at the airport – the Wi-Fi network there needs you to log in with an OTP, and WiFire actually lets you automate this whole process. That part was pretty great. On the other hand, the fact that the app did not first try to connect to the network, and then did not successfully automatically log in on our first two tries, was annoying. This test was carried out on Android and the auto-login feature did work from the third try onwards.

It’s worth pointing out that the app takes permission to switch your Wi-Fi on or off, to read your messages (in order to detect OTPs) and requires your phone number (to fill the forms), and either a social login or your name to sign up for the app. That’s a huge amount of personal data and access you’re handing over for the convenience of using this app, but it’s similar to what other apps like WhatsApp use to achieve similar functionality when dealing with OTP.

Source: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/reviews/wifire-app-review-1470894?pfrom=home-trending