Wonder how to connect to Starbucks wifi? Lucky for you, it’s easy, and we’ll show you how to get it done! Starbucks offers free Wi-Fi to its customers, so you can stay connected while you enjoy a cup of coffee or tea.
- It’s free!
- It’s fast and reliable.
- It’s available in over 20,000 Starbucks locations worldwide..
- It’s easy to use.
How To Connect To Starbucks WiFi
Step 1: Ensure Wifi is turned on your device. You should see “Starbucks” 
Step 2: Open a web browser and try to navigate to any website. It should trigger their WiFi to route you to the connection page.
It might ask for a name and email address. Feel free to use a fake one, there is no reason to give them your e-mail address to get onto the WiFi.
Or if you’ve used their WiFi in the past, it might say you can Accept & Connect.
Step 3: You’re connected! But remember, free WiFi might be a security risk!
Step 4: Ensure NordVPN is connected. You can also pull down on the top bar and see next to the WiFi icon a small VPN in a box.
Is Starbucks WiFi Secure?
While it’s unlikely that these networks will be hacked and likely that their network is secure, you can never be too safe. This is why whenever I’m out working at a coffee shop, I ensure my phone and laptop are connected over a VPN service, which guarantees privacy. Since the network at Starbucks is technically an open network, if someone wants to find your device… with all the sharing and discovery features that come standard on Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS etc…. it just makes sense to me not to chance it. The VPN creates a secure, encrypted tunnel to the VPN server, bypassing the other network devices. Not only that, but my VPN prevents ad trackers from following my browsing habits on the web… which is nice when you realize that Google and Meta are two of the largest ad publishers in the United States!
Starbucks uses internet access provided by Google for ‘free.’ But it isn’t free because browsing habits are logged, and any plain-text traffic on the network can be sniffed out and tracked to your device for advertising purposes. The danger of using a captive portal WiFi is that you never know what they’re doing to route traffic in the background. They could easily perform a man-in-middle attack to spoof the HTTPS certificates of certain websites and use that false authentication to see more than you’d expect. This way, they cannot see anything your device is passing, which is why VPNs are so popular in countries that censor their internet.
Wrapping Up Connecting To Starbucks Wi-Fi
So, there you have it! Those are the steps on how to connect to Starbucks Wi-Fi.
Free Wi-Fi is everywhere now, Starbucks, the airport, and just about any big box store. But again, they’re not just doing it because it’s a nice thing to do, they use a variety of Wi-Fi/Bluetooth beacons that allow them to watch how you shop. Sound crazy? The NY Times wrote about it in 2019!