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John P on Tip a Day about Wi-Fi

Pay Less for Gogo In-Flight WiFi

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Having the ability to access the Internet on a plane is a great development in the travel industry! Do you breathe a sigh of relief when you see the little “WiFi Onboard” sticker outside the plane?

Here in the US, Gogo is the most popular onboard service. We LOVE Gogo and use them as much as possible, but if you travel a lot, the price can be a little painful.

Pay Less for In Flight WiFi

When you log on to Gogo (and probably most other services), you’ll notice they charge less if you’re on your phone or tablet than they do if you’re on a laptop…

How can you get WiFi on your laptop for the price of a MOBILE access pass?

By the way, this IS a hack, and you’re a cheater if you do it! So don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Using Chrome

To start with, I recommend you use the Chrome browser.

  • BEFORE you get on the plane (while you still have an Internet connection on the ground), download and install the extension called User Agent Switcher.
  • Now you’ll see a tiny icon in the menu bar that looks like a masked vigilante.
  • Click it and change the browser settings to “iPad” or “iPhone”. That forces Chrome to tell Web servers it’s an iPad, which is great for developers, but turns out to be very useful for you too!
  • Now connect to the airplane Wifi and use that browser to log in and connect to the internet.
  • Once you’re connected, you can switch your browser back to Default and carry on as normal!

Using Firefox/Safari

If you want to use Firefox:

  • Click your Tools menu
  • Choose Default User Agent
  • Select iPhone

In Safari:

  • Go to the Safari menu, choose Preferences.
  • Go to the Advanced tab and check the box that says “Show Devleop menu in menu bar”.
  • Then when you’re on a plane, click the Develop menu, then choose iPhone or iPad.

Okay, now you can save a few bucks on every flight!

More tips at geekbeat.tv/tipaday

About John P.

John P. is CEO of Livid Lobster and co-host of Geek Beat TV. You can also find him on Twitter and Google+.

Comments

  1. Joel says

    Hey JohnJohn 🙂
    I’ve never tried this but i’ve got a thought [correct me if I’m saying irrelevant\wrong details..
    BUT, lets say your NOT flying alone, why not just pay [for whatever you pay] for wifi, and then evevn TETHER it and share the love [and wifi =] with your friends&family 🙂
    Would it work [no reason why not, right]?
    That way you buy 1 connection and get a bunch [narrowed down, but dang good enough…]… & If you travel alone, you might also check it out and maybe share the love and fee with a somewhat tech-savy seat partner 🙂
    Keep up the good work 🙂

  2. Don Chapman says

    John P! Why not just use the cool little D-Link router you mentioned earlier? That way you can share your media as well!

    Keep up the awesome work!

    • John P. says

      hahaha I wonder if that is possible Don??? It actually should work. Technically you could use that D-link router and then sell off WiFi access to everyone around you through it! How evil…

  3. RAD Moose says

    I do not condone this, however, I did want to point out that Google Chrome has a built in user agent switcher already.

    The process should be similar on other platforms, however, this is how to do it on a PC running Windows.

    Open Chrome
    Press CTRL+SHIFT+J to open the developer’s console.
    Click the “gear icon” in the lower right corner to get to the settings menu.
    Select “Overrides” in the left column if not already selected.
    Check the “User Agent” box
    From the pull down menu, select a mobile device such as Android 2.3 or iPhone IOS5.

    Your user agent for that TAB is now set to the specific device.