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Many Wi-Fi hotspots these days have a "web login", especially free ones. You know, the ones that redirect any HTTP request to their login form. (The technical term for the technique is "captive portal".) Constantly logging into these manually is a pain, especially if you use the same ones all the time.

Is there a program out there that can automate such logins, i.e. save my username and password for a given hotspot, detect that the hotspot currently requires a login (i.e. captive portal detection, which Windows itself does) and actually perform the login without any action on my part?

Note that this capability exists for Android and, I believe, iOS.

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  • Note that I am copying the text from this unjustly closed question on SuperUser.SE.
    – Jess Riedel
    Apr 25, 2014 at 18:39
  • It is a fact that SuperUser.SE is not made for this kind of questions... That's why Software Recommendations was created, and this is a great question for here :-) Could you please specify your OS, though, or split your into for instance 5 questions (for Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux). There is probably no app that supports all 5 platforms, so splitting is the best in this case. Thanks and welcome to SR!
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    May 9, 2014 at 7:32
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    You had a "windows" tag so I guessed your question is for Windows, and changed the title to reflect that. I also created the same question for Android: softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/3974/… Not sure to understand the "like Windows does" part of the question though.
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    May 9, 2014 at 8:05
  • Windows 8 appears to have this built-in.
    – Sam Axe
    May 9, 2014 at 9:36
  • Well Nicholas, that SuperUser question was actually reopened in response to my objections, so not everyone agrees with you. I'm actually of the opinion that SoftwareRecommendations has a dubious mission (due to it being essentially built around a type of question rather than a topic). But that's a discussion for elsewhere.
    – Jess Riedel
    May 9, 2014 at 12:25

1 Answer 1

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There seem to be a number of options on how to do this. Unfortunately, there's no real pure Windows application. They all seem to rely on scripts and the like.

As One of the SuperUser quetions pointed out, there is a scripting tool called WebInject that could be used to make a script that opens up the page and logs in for you. As I mentioned in the comments, there is a scripting tool called AutoHotKey that could also do this.

In terms of automating these, a good technique would be to use the Task Scheduler on Windows, and create an on-login event for your computer (I believe you would be looking for code 508, which is the event for successfully logging onto the local computer).

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  • This seems to be the best answer available so I'm accepting it. But if someone else finds something better (or something better is released) I hope they post it.
    – Jess Riedel
    Oct 24, 2014 at 13:12
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    Or, worse comes to absolute worse, I may just write one, and post to it here...
    – Dylan Corriveau
    Oct 24, 2014 at 13:13

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