Browser vs. McDonald's Wi-Fi - all tabs go "bye"

[antman]

Hi all,

My TF101 is currently running Android 4.0.3, but this has been a problem for me pretty much since I got it around release time...

I don't experience this issue connecting to Wi-Fi at home or at work, but whenever I connect to the Free Wi-Fi at a McDonald's (Australia) restaurant every single tab I have open in the Browser app gets redirected to the McDonald's Wi-Fi Terms and Conditions page. This wouldn't be a problem if I could just press the Back button in the toolbar after I had finished connecting, but the Back button history has also been cleared on every tab so I have to go through the Browser History to try to get everything back to where it was. Is there a setting I can tweak to stop this happening? A different browser maybe? Or is this something unique to Android?

I don't experience this problem with iDevices. They spawn a separate Safari window to do what they probably consider network authentication, so you don't lose page state on them. (iDevices aren't smart enough to show all of the networks you've previously connected to in Wi-Fi settings, though, so they aren't all gold.)

[Frederuco]

Yes, iDevices check for a connection to Apple.com when in the Settings to authenticate. This can be good and bad...my wife had an issue where she cancelled out of that on her iPad and it took her about 15 minutes (and 2 reboots) to get it to appear again to sign on. Even using Safari would not let her sign on.

My suggestion - use a browser specifically for signing on to a WiFi network. Maybe install something like Opera Mini, connect WiFi, open Opera Mini and establish your connection, then go to your preferred browser to surf the web.

Or you could stop eating fast food.

[antman]

My suggestion - use a browser specifically for signing on to a WiFi network. Maybe install something like Opera Mini, connect WiFi, open Opera Mini and establish your connection, then go to your preferred browser to surf the web.

Great advice. I tried this on the way home tonight with Firefox and Dolphin and they both did the right thing, i.e.: they did not Refresh every single tab they had open. Google's built-in Browser must be unique in its Herculean effort to refresh every tab.

Or you could stop eating fast food.

Ha ha. Some McDonald's have what they call a McCafé attached where they sell regular cafe items including coffee from (allegedly) trained baristas. I sometimes stop into one on the way to/from work just to get out of the traffic for a while and relax with a coffee and a bite to eat.