Wi-Fi Sense, a neat little feature hidden away in Windows 10 has been a contentious issue. The feature allows your friends and acquaintances to connect to your Wi-Fi network and vice versa just through being connected via contacts and or social networking.
For the most part this is kind of a cool way of being able to share network information with your friends without having to flip over the router or dig out the info card. However, there are some interesting issues with it that had some people riled.
Understandably some people were a little upset at the thought of their information being shared wantonly. There were of course some security measures in place to prevent the information being open for the taking. The passwords were never actually shared in a visible format, the information was sent in an encrypted manner and all the decrypting was done behind the scenes and you had to tell Windows to share the Wi-Fi connection you had just joined. Still people were antsy and Microsoft stood firm, backing it as a useful feature.
Until now, in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview it’s stated that the Wi-Fi sense feature is being removed. The statement from the Vice President of Engineering, Gabe Aul stated that “The cost of updating the code to keep this feature working combined with low usage and low demand made this not worth further investment”.
Detractors of the service will surely put this down to Microsoft bowing to public pressure but for now Microsoft are rigid in their claims that it isn’t worth funding anymore.
For those who do use the feature it will continue to connect people to open Wi-Fi hotspots they’ve acquired through crowdsourcing, so it’s not entirely gone, just lesser.