- Disable DNS once. Find out URL/IP of captive portal that way.
- Add to hosts file (Win/Lin/Mac). Maybe even give an alias: "captive-school", "captive-library", etc.
- Turn DNS back on. The hosts file will take prerogative over DNS settings, i.e. it is resolved first.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026
12 points (92.9% liked)
Privacy
50674 readers
917 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
This could be a good option for the library actually.
Maybe I can just check the IP via my phone, then add it to the hosts of my laptop.
I'll give that a try
A bit cumbersome if you are traveling and using a different public wifi every time though
A bit cumbersome if you are traveling and using a different public wifi every time though
You're not wrong. But you're probably also familiar with the "secure vs. convenient" dichotomy: the closer to the "secure" end of the spectrum you get, the more cumbersome things will inevitably get. If you feel like you're jumping through too many hoops and you don't know what for, chances are you're overshooting the target in terms of your threat model and might get away with doing less.
True, I just found it convenient to block ads and trackers on a system level.
If you are using something like nextDNS it's very easy to block ads and trackers everywhere, and even block social media or adult websites and such.
So using DNS over TLS is not necessarily about hiding my internet traffic, but more also to limit unnecessary content. I suppose the same can be done with a combination of browser extensions. But using the private DNS made sense to me.
Try to go to the access point's IP address, that always works for me.
Just have a dedicated browser used for the login that is excluded from your DNS.
Or a dedicated browser profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles
I was looking at this one: Captive Browser
But would it work if I have my private DNS configured on system level?
I was also thinking to just disable the private DNS and configure it in firefox, but then it would only block trackers/ads in the browser, not in any other application.
Would make it easy to toggle off for a second to login to a captive portal though, or have a separate firefox profile for that (like davel mentioned)
Disable your dns over tls so you can register your MAC address and complete the portal requirements. Once registered, turn your dns back on.
This is the most straightforward way if I was not on NixOs.
If I want to change the DNS settings in my nix config, I need internet connection (unless it's possible to rebuild while offline?)
I was trying to bypass this by just changing the DNS server for that specific network connection, but I didn't get it to work. Because it has to use the DNS of the captive portal to be able to load the page
Requiring internet connectivity to make network changes seems like a major failure point?
Kinda. Not sure how other people do it on NixOs. I suppose they don't put any network settings in their configuration.
Or maybe there is a way to rebuild offline.
I have Fedora on my laptop. I'll often connect to my VPN and then manually change the DNS. Annoying, but usually works.
Another method if I'm using said WiFi for long periods of time is to use my travel router. Log into the portal on my laptop and then change the MAC of the router to that of my laptop and put it in repeater mode. Then connect the laptop to the router. Equally as annoying, but worth it.
You can connect to your VPN already before changing DNS?
I was interested in having a VPN to my home network which just works over 443, so I can access everything in my home network even on public wifis in a safe way. Haven't managed to set it up yet though.
What do you use for travel router? Might be interesting as well.
I guess you use the DHCP-assigned DNS first, then change it to what you want after connecting. Tailscale is a great way to access your home network. Headscale is another one but I haven't used it.
I use a gl.inet router. They're like $30. They use OpenWRT.