You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Jailbreak Power User Tip: Disable The iPhone's WiFi Login Panel

February 6, 2010

The WiFi login panel, or WiFi splash screen, was introduced by Apple along with iPhone OS 3.0. The idea is that whenever you connect your iPhone to a wireless hot-spot, a web-view pops up so you can login or pay directly. If you don't, it disconnects.

I never really understood this feature. I have free wireless on certain hot-spots when I connect through VPN and this login screen made it impossible for me to use because before I manage to switch on the VPN, I get caught by the login panel.

Well, I finally found a way around it. It requires you to jailbreak and it's kinda dirty, but it works great. Here is the trick:

To detect whether it needs to launch a splash page, iPhone OS tries to connect itself to www.apple.com every time you hit a wireless network. If it detects a redirection, it launches the splash page; fairly simple. To disable the login, all you need to do is edit /etc/hosts and add this line: 0.0.0.0 www.apple.com Make sure the file has the correct permissions (something like 777) and reboot. From now on your iPhone will act just like it always did on previous OS versions, with one downside, you won't be able to visit Apple.com ever again. To edit the file, I actually just used iFile from Cydia, but you can easily do it through SSH or mobile terminal. [via MacOSHints]

Related articles