But we won't have to buy anything, right? I'll happily take advantage of the wifi, but I really don't want to eat their burgers. Yuck.

now I can go for a burger and surf the web

none of that having to get some pesky exercise to get from fast food outlet to nearest wifi point

but that said its McDonalds, not some up market eatery, it'll be full of fat ugly blokes looking at porn within a week of starting, oh and they'll probably share it all with a the annoying brats that eat there.

on the other hand whos going to take a laptop or have any expensive electronics in a McDonalds for the chavs to through milkshake or mayonnaise over? and with wifi access will it really be what it looks like?

Free internet for the price of a coffee.. that somehow lasts an hour or so: bargain!

Time to start looking locally for pubs next door to McDonalds.

from McDonalds and that would count. Just make the bottle of water last as long as possible.

But who would want to grease up thier laptop down the local chav hotspot anyway?

McDonalds launch free McPorn.

"It's all part of a company-wide drive upmarket"

As an ex-McDonalds employee (to keep my student overdraft inside acceptable limits) I enjoyed this phrase. I can't ever see McDonalds getting anwhere upmarket simply because their concept of food is miles away from the healthy stuff available from the competition in the space they are allegedly heading for.

Would I run a casual business meeting in a quiet StarBucks (if there is such a thing)? Yes. In McDonalds? No, not even if they closed the place for me...

The ethos is miles and miles away from what it needs to be... ROFL

whats the betting there will be a promotion along the lines of McMegaByte

maybe rebrand Small, Medium, Large and Supersize as Kilo, Mega, Giga And Terra?

would they stop there though?, i doubt it bet they will refer to there ip address as Mc Address...

I'm grateful, I live in a small market town, and the McDonalds here is pretty chav-free, save the odd overweight mother of six swearing her counterfeit Playboy scrunchie off. I dread to think what may happen in, say, the dodgier areas of Mitcham, London.

before McDonalds sues Apple over trade mark rights in "Mac"?

Looks like this is a great time for FREE wifi. BT and their BT Fon and now McDonalds and their FREE wifi access. 1 chain will start then the next and so on until you'll soon be able to access web most places.

BT have the right idea and it will be a bonus when the other ISPs are aloud in on the action..Well done McDonalds!

Free wifi at MacD's has been standard in Paris and some other EuroCits for a while.

Find a street-side cafe next door, and sip and surf while watching the world go by.

It's the ONLY reason I could possibly think of for being in the vicinity of a MacDonalds or reccommending them to my pupils.

Paying for wifi is pretty pathetic, for me it can be the tipping point between venues (not that I hang about in mcdonalds at all, although the milkshakes are bearable)

I've seen a lot more free wifi in european cafes and I refuse to pay the extortionate pricing that I see over here in the UK.

"...would they stop there though?, i doubt it bet they will refer to there ip address as Mc Address... "

That would be the big-MAC address surely?

I've got to applaud this move. I was working in Jo'burg for 6 months and didn't have net access at home. The local McDonald's had their free WiFi and I was happy to grab a bottle of water (as good faith - it was never a requirement) to use it to stay in touch.

... won't folks just sit in the car park and say "I'll be ordering in a minute", then drive off when finished surfing?

Mind you, on the rare occasions I've actually tried my BT Openzone PAYG, I've never actually managed to get an IP address, let alone surf...

In France, you can have a beer to pay for your Wifi, as I did in Rodez. Choice of one, mind; Kronenbourg draft.

Just ask for "Frites et un Pression s'il vous plait"

The whole experience compared very well to using the horrid, expensive, slow Orange service at a Mercure ('business class') hotel a couple of days before.

The burgers are still shit though.

...that your pupils don't learn spelling from you. "reccommending" ???

Try it with a single "c" next time, as in "recommending" :P

Anyway, are we about to see a sudden rise in the value of houses next door to McDonald franchises? Free internet connection included, but only during opening times!

It's just new to the UK. I spent a week in Bogota, Colombia last year. Loads of places have free WiFi there.

Face it, this won't be free. As has been said, you have to buy chav-chow first. Free WiFi doesn't really exist per se in the UK, unless you're on your uni campus, or at your place of work or so. I'm sorry, but some techno-anarcho collective in Dalston doing a free WiFi project on one street, doesn't count. As our Parisian correspondent suggests, things are better on mainland Europe.

Truly free WiFi, in more than a couple of squatted arts venues, would be hilarious, in the way VOIP would then smash our cellphone providers. But until it exists, please don't bother using the phrase.

The "fun" of this is the 2 McD's I've used with Wifi around where I work have both had all their wifi removed. Yay for the march of technology

So if I spill coffee all over my laptop will I be able to sue Maccie D's for millions for ruining my life?

Just sit near McDonalds and use the net anyway, for free, without buying anything.

Considering the cops are now arresting anyone sitting around in public with a laptop for "stealing" WiFi access, I can imagine they'll easily fill their arrest quotas hanging around McD's, nicking all the "terrorists" and "kiddy porn merchants" using the WiFi for their nefarious dealings... even if you did buy a milkshake two hours ago!

The McDonalds across the street from the coffee shop I frequent has had free Wi-Fi for about four months now. I never bought any "chav-chow" (hilarious!) there but the SSID reads "McNet" so I assume it's theirs. I haven't actually been inside to see as this *is* one of those McDonalds that is filled with screaming six-packs of children...

It's a bit strange that McDonalds say they are continuing to work with BT Openzone when they terminated Openzone access in July. I only found out when the manager of my local McD told me. I used the BT service there as there is a crap WiFi service in the town I live in. I contacted BT after the BT FON announcement thinking that this might just replace this service. No such luck! Although I am a BT Openzone subsciber, I can't use the BT FON service as I don't have their Total Broadband service at home. Their service sucks.

"Do you want Wi-Fries with that"

Big M will stop at nothing ' cos it feeds on addictions, so no surprise that frying our brains is just another step in the food chain ; pay attention Mr Apple 'cos a laptop that looks like a "BigMac" could be just a bite away!

Ugh, I don't care if they offer free mcwi-fi my kids aren't going anywhere near that slop shop. That place is just a disgusting lard factory churning out fat people with mystery meat as ingredients.

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck.

UPmarket???? From Where?