Member Avatar for steelers_fan

I'm staying at a motel that provides free wi fi to the guests. The motel provides several lines that I can connect to. Each lines have several channels. Now I do have a firwall (Comodo). I need to know if the people at the motel can see where i'm surfing or the person next door can do the same. Please reply.

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Short answer for : the motel operator can log connections and see anything you send in plain text; other guests usually cannot read your traffic unless the network is open or an attacker is active on the same LAN. is right that casual browsing often goes fine, but risk depends on how the Wi‑Fi is set up and what you do while connected.

Technical clarity for what gets exposed: on an open hotspot any packet can be captured. With a shared WPA/WPA2 passphrase, a guest who knows the password can potentially decrypt traffic they capture. Plain HTTP leaks full URLs and content. HTTPS protects page content and most of the URL path, but DNS queries and the TLS SNI (the hostname) are typically visible unless you use encrypted DNS and modern SNI‑encryption (not yet universal). A hotel that runs an intercepting proxy or a captive‑portal with certificate inspection can see more, but that requires the client to accept a proxy/root certificate. pointed to logging at the network level; this is the kind of metadata involved.

Practical, immediately useful steps: use a reputable VPN (WireGuard/OpenVPN) to protect all traffic end‑to‑end; enable DNS over HTTPS/TLS in your browser or OS; avoid sensitive transactions on unknown Wi‑Fi if you have no VPN and prefer mobile data for banking; do not install unknown root certificates; pay attention to certificate warnings; enable two‑factor authentication on important accounts.

Quick troubleshooting and hard signs of danger: if multiple identical SSIDs appear, if a login page asks for unusual permissions or a certificate install, or if the AP BSSID (MAC) does not match what the front desk says, treat the network as hostile and switch to VPN or cellular. gave useful device‑level advice earlier; combine that with the network precautions above for the best protection.

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Member Avatar for pranman

Typically, you wouldn't need to worry.

Curious question - Can you see anything in Network Neighbourhood?

Member Avatar for Michael_Knight

If you have your firewall on high, you will be ok. Disable things like File & printer Sharing and unshare any shared folders.

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

if the hotel ahs a proxy server, or a logging firewall, the administrator would typically be able to see the list of http/https requests you have made.

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