Popular Chinese app for using wifi without a password gets $10M funding, and we take it for a spin There are times in life when you’re desperate for some wifi. Your data plan runs dry, you visit a foreign country, or the nearest 3G signal is just out of reach. Wifi is pretty much ubiquitous in most of China’s major cities these days. The problem is that they are either password protected or, even worse, let you connect and then require further input, usually personal information or a username and password that you don’t have. Even at Starbucks, users have to input their phone number to receive a PIN via text message to be able to access the web. This leads to frustration as you run down the list of nearby hotspots. Furthermore, inputting your phone number or personal info just to be able to download an app or send a message on WeChat makes you vulnerable. It’s a reckless behavior that will lead to spammy texts and even serious security threats. This is why apps for cracking wi-fi passwords and stealing some free internet have grown quite popular among Chinese users, especially those with high-end phones, according to app store and mobile search startup Wandoujia. One of the most popular is Wifi Companion (Wifi伴侣), which just received an RMB 60 million (US$9.75 million) series A round of funding from the Chinese Academy of Science’s venture capital arm, Kejiahe National Venture Capital Fund, according to 36kr. Tech in Asia gave the app a spin to see if it really works as advertised. It opens to a list of nearby wifi hotspots similar to your phone’s default wifi settings screen. Just choose one and tell it to connect using the top-most option, which literally translates to “a key to unlock the connection” (一键解锁连接). A few seconds later, we were connected to a password-protected wifi, with the app clocking solid download speeds. Not too shabby, but be warned that it only really worked on about a third of the wifi networks we tested. That means there’s still some trial and error involved, but it’s much faster than the alternative. This is extremely useful in a pinch such as when your prepaid data plan runs out and you desperately need to respond to an email. But if you want to use it daily, you’ll have to either complete certain “tasks” or pay for the VIP subscription. Those “tasks” include rating the app on the app store and recommending it to friends on social media. Essentially, it’s the Candy Crush of wifi apps. So how’s it work? Wifi Companion has a deal worked out with the country’s biggest mobile carrier and provider of many of the countries public hotspots, China Mobile. That accounts for a few million of its 30 million available hotspots nationwide, including all ChinaNet and CMCC hotspots. The rest come from a crowdsourcing model — users who actually have a username and password for a wifi hotspot can add it to the database. Other users will never see their login info, but they’ll be able to connect. Adding more hotspots to the database is another way to get more free internet time. The crowdsourced model has worked well so far, as Wifi Companion has over 18 million monthly active users who connect to millions of hotspots every day, according to the company’s website. At its peak, it rose to the sixth-ranked app on the Apple App Store in China. While popular, it still trails Wifi Master Key (Wifi万能锁匙), which has 230 million active users according to Forbes China. This post Popular Chinese app for using wifi without a password gets $10M funding, and we take it for a spin appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 07:36:39 +0000
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