Hi all! I was wondering whether it would be safer to connect my laptop to my phone 4g hotspot compared to using a public (non password protected) Wifi connection?
No comparison, the 4g hotspot is the safer option. Avoid the public wifi entirely.
In the end i consider its same, simply because of todays security, Like if you got an updated laptop and only visiting HTTPS site with HSTS nobody could MITM you and steal your data even without VPN ( Yes i know SSL MITM are a thing but the ROOT CA of the SSL MITM must be installed to the machine in order to work so useless in this case ). And with new features like DNS over TLS even seeing what site you’re visiting is not possible without intervention on the machine.
Both are safe, as long as you they do not interfere (MITM) your connection.
That is just BS tbh. What are they gonna steal? Some https encrypted binary blobs?
People responding to these kinds of questions always focus on MITM attacks, or web traffic interception and how much more difficult it is these days. They tend to overlook the risk of sharing a local network with a bunch of strangers and all the potential attacks against the machine itself. Even in a business environment, half the machines I see still have no firewall enabled, shares wide open, ssh or Remote Desktop enabled, weak passwords etc. You’re putting a lot of faith in the guy running an unencrypted wifi service to have turned on host isolation.
People also tend to respond from the perspective of security professionals, or at least hobbyists with extensive knowledge, and base their response on how secure their personal environment is. The people who post these kinds of questions are not likely to be following best practices, and their systems are not as secure as yours.
The idea that someone has a similar attack surface on a 4g hotspot compared to an unencrypted public wifi network shared with strangers is ridiculous.