I do love wifi and use it on a secure site, but I would not use it for anything that requires privacy on an open network.

While the chances are slim that a hacker will be close enough to hack into your system via the open network, it can still happen.

If you can log onto someone elses open network, that means that anyone with a snooping program can look into what sites you are visiting and what passwords you are using.

I don't know about Canada but in the US and at least Taiwan, it's illegal to connect onto someone else's network without permission. I read about a teenager being sued for accessing a neighbors wifi network and the teenager found guilty in Taiwan. Only reason I know about the Taiwan issue.

As to hacking into an open network, I saw a demonstration on why a secured network is best and how someone can see what you are doing on an open network with a sniffer program.

Also setup your network with a hard password with numbers and letters and nothing as so simple as being your name, etc...