Panama Internet Cafés
Mar 2nd, 2007 by Don Ray
I had a recent email question that might be worth answering on the blog. The email said.
I’ve never used an Internet cafe. Do some in David have computers that one can use, or do they only have hookups for one’s personal laptop?
In case you are not familiar with Internet cafés, they are what many of the Panama locals use to access the Internet. Since many families can’t afford a connection at home or live in an area that does not have Internet service, then the students in those families use the Internet cafés for homework. The PCs usually have the Microsoft programs Word, Excel, etc. and the students bring their own floppy disk and do their research and write their homework on the café PCs.
Likewise these cafés are good for tourists for accessing email and the Internet in general. The charge for these cafés usually is somewhere around 50 cents an hour and there are many in David, Boquete, and most of the towns in Panama.
Many of these cafés have the ability for you to connect your own laptop. The benefit is that you have total control of the antivirus and spyware being used to protect your PC and accounts you access.
If you use an Internet café, you need to be careful in what you are doing. If you are just using it to read Chiriquí Chatter ;-), there is no risk. However, if you are planning on accessing your bank account, credit card accounts, etc., then that is a different story. Not all of the cafés do a good job staying current with their antivirus software or spyware software. It is possible that you can get on a PC and have passwords, account numbers, etc. captured by spyware and used by someone other than you.
When I used an Internet café, I always looked to see if they had an antivirus program active and up to date. I also looked to see if they has “Spybot”, “Adware” or some other spyware detection software installed and with current signatures. Normally I would take my laptop and just connect to their Ethernet connection.
If this is foreign to you and you don’t understand what I have written, then I recommend not accessing accounts that you don’t want at risk at Internet Cafés. Another caution is related to the use of wireless “hotspots”. If you are not technically proficient in using the wireless connection to insure a secure connection, I also suggest avoiding accessing accounts that you don’t want to put at risk.
Don,
What about wireless connections? We will needour latop down there on this trip, and wondering about be able to pick up signals while in David so we don’t have to ‘connect’.
Doug
You won’t find many if any wireless. Internet Café’s are in it to make a profit and not give away bandwidth. The only wireless I have had occasion to use was in a cabana setup in Boquete and the wireless they were using was not secure and only good for surfing the net and not true secure connections.
My recommendation is to use the café’s eithernet connection and pay them 50 cents an hour.