The free antivirus at that coffee shop burned me, now I pay for a password manager instead

I was at a busy Starbucks in Austin last month, killing time before a meeting, and hopped onto their guest wifi to check my bank app. The next day I got a fraud alert for $340 at a gas station in Ohio I've never been to. I spent four hours on the phone with my bank and the card company, and it turned out the 'secure' network had a lookalike login page that asked me to 'verify' my card info. Everyone in this sub swears by free AV software, but that incident taught me the real weak link was my habit of trusting public networks and my lazy password reuse. I dumped the free tools, started using a paid password manager with two-factor auth on everything, and now I only use my phone's hot spot when I'm out. Has anyone else had a breach traced back to a cafe or hotel wifi, and did you switch up your whole setup after it?

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hannahsingh1mo ago

Friend used "free" hotel wifi, woke up to $800 in crypto purchases. Switched to hotspot only, never looked back.