Since signing up for any kind of service such as telephone, internet (ADSL) or television is a pain in the ass here, we’ve been putting it off. Every internet company wants a year contract, installation fee, all this blah blah. And it actually costs the same or more per month as it does in Canada!  So I’ve been checking around town for WiFi hotspots.

A lot of the cafe’s seem to have wifi though I’ve found I have trouble connecting to a lot of them for some reason. Maybe it’s the wireless card in my laptop, but it’s a top-end card so I don’t see why that would be. So far my greatest success has been the Burger King on Vaci Utca at Fovam ter across from the market. I can connect there pretty easily and nobody seems to bother you if you aren’t buying anything (so sometimes I’ll grab a cheap coffee so I don’t feel guilty).

Another place I can connect at is Becketts Irish Pub. The net connection was being retarded and wouldn’t let me hook up, so I had to get them to restart their router. But it worked after that. If only they didn’t over charge for the Guiness there, I’d be there more often.

There are also a lot of random signals along Vaci utca but most are weak and don’t work well. If you’re in Budapest and looking for wifi the definitely check out the cafes and some of the pubs. A surprising amount of them have wifi for patrons, and places you can plug your laptop into so you don’t run out of battery.