Cutting the cord

[AWCHIEF]

I am in the process of selling my house and hitting the road. I have always had my internet and email thru Cableone. I have an IPhone thru Verizon with another year on the current phone contract. What do I need to do about an email address and Internet access once I cut the cord?

[Lily&Me]

I have a yahoo.com email address, and am a longtime Verizon customer.

If you are going to full time, might look into adding Verizon's mifi to your contract, which carries your private and secure internet access with you wherever you go.

A lot of campgrounds have wifi, but it is unreliable across the board and best to have your own for banking, credit cards, etc.


Maggie

[NWGetaways]

Verizon is a good choice in the west as far as rural coverage goes. I have T-Mobile, which I love, but bought a Verizon JetPack so I could occasionally work while on the road. T-Mobile fades out fast once you leave cities.

AT&T is very good, but not quite as good in the rural west.

It's easy enough to get an email address that's not tied to your carrier. GMail is probably the most widely used.

Get ready to rethink how you use the internet, in any situation where you are relying on cellular. Get an ad blocker as it cuts the data use on websites by as much as 80%. Don't even think of using NetFlix, unless you want to pay about $10 a movie.

[Msmoto]

I have three phones, plus one mobile WiFi from Verizon. The nice aspect is the Hot spot can be taken with you to where ever you go, use you computer in the wild as long as Verizon service is present.

However, if one downloads huge files, as I do with photos, this can use lots of data, and I currently have 20GB per month, marginal.

So, McDonalds is great. A Senior coffee, 6 AM, the bandwidth is very nice, allows lots of data moving without killing your allowance on the mobile wifi.

While there may be other carriers, it has been my experience Verizon covers some areas exclusively, like my land in Colorado where I visit often.

[Hittenstiehl]

When using the the public WiFi, McDonalds, Starbucks, and the many others what safety or security measures do you use to keep your computer and data safe.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Hittenstiehl

When using the the public WiFi, McDonalds, Starbucks, and the many others what safety or security measures do you use to keep your computer and data safe.

The main thing is, set your device so that it is not detectable by other devices on the same network. That's generally an option you can set when logging in.

If you want to sync data between your phone and laptop or tablet, don't use anyone else's WiFi hotspot. Set your smartphone as a hotspot, log into it from the laptop and/or tablet, and sync using your own network. You'll be using your phone's data plan for syncing, but it's much more secure than using someone else's hotspot.

[NWGetaways]

Originally Posted by Hittenstiehl

When using the the public WiFi, McDonalds, Starbucks, and the many others what safety or security measures do you use to keep your computer and data safe.

In theory there are risks, but in practice the only real risk with public WiFi is connecting to a malicious network. If you see something called "Free WiFi" best to skip it.

If it's McDonalds or Starbucks you're good. If you see two networks, something like "McDonalds" and "McDonalds WiFi" find out which one is the official one.

[Hittenstiehl]

Okay Protag as an example:

When at Starbucks (just an example) with my laptop and I want to do something that uses lots of data (maybe some videos or maybe photos like Msmoto said).

I have a MiFi but I'm choosing to save its data usage and don't use it.

I want to practice safe public WiFi.

I go to my internet browser on my laptop, it pops up a WiFi setting for where I'm at. I choose it and before or as I sign on I find a setting on my laptop to block other nearby users access to my laptop's information.

Sorry for the basic question but up until now we have used our cellphones or MiFi and steered away from free public wifi.

[KJRitchie]

Sounds like you want to get rid of all cell phone, then you are stuck with public access WIFI which I wouldn't want to use to do online banking etc.

I use Apple's Mail so my email doesn't change whether I switch carrier to carrier or ISP to ISP. You can use it over public WIFI and connect via www.icloud.com.

I use the Verizon hotspot on my iPhone 6 to connect other devices. I only have a 2g data plan and didn't over use it on my recent 2 week trip to Utah. I don't stream video or do any software upgrades while on cell data.

Kelvin

[BoldAdventure]

After about 8 months on the road, and even before that traveling the country, I have yet to be disappointed by my Verizon Mifi. We purchased one of the grandfather plans awhile ago. But even still, it's worth the cost. We have two iphones as well on our plan. So as another mentioned, I would consider adding the mifi to your plan. PS, if you go off contract, you can hassle them regularly to reduce your bill. But you have to accept paying for hardware upfront. I pay lower than friends with subsided phones because I call ever 9 months and threaten to switch. Most folks won't even make the call.

As for security on networks that are not yours, I use PureVPN to provide me with 256-bit encryption and total anonymity for all my web traffic.

There are other services like privateinternetaccess.com‎ that are worth their weight in gold. I'm a strong advocate for VPN's since I work in tech. I have to use a fixed IP to access our servers, and this is how I do that in a secure fashion.

As for email, apple mail is ok, but I personally prefer gmail. I have used a business account with google apps since 2009 and have my email at my own domain @mk3y.com for myself and my wife. I'd have it no other way. Yahoo doesn't hold a candle to Gmail.

[AWCHIEF]

Thanks for the inputs, plenty to think about.

[xrvr]

Exciting news about cutting the cord, if anyone can succeed I believe you can. Good luck, remember slow and deliberate gets things done with lasting results.

[mojo]

If you are using a Macintosh computer, be sure your file sharing is turned off when using public wifi connections.

[KJRitchie]

Won't you feel kinda naked not having at least a phone to call for emergencies or talk to family? At least get a prepaid phone.

Kelvin

[Rocinante]

We've been using Cloak VPN on public wifi for our iPhones, iPads, and our MacBooks. It seems to work well, though I don't know whether it would be as fast as Pure VPN.

https://www.getcloak.com/