<p>My internet keeps stopping randomly on my laptop in the dorms. All I have to do is close the browser and reopen is (as opposed to disconnecting and reconnecting to the internet). Does anybody else have this problem? And is this a laptop or wifi internet problem?</p>
<p>What operating system are you using? If you use Windows or Mac OS, you should be running a program called SafeConnect that keeps you logged in. Maybe SafeConnect has some issues, so you can try uninstalling it and trying again.</p>
<p>Here’s what I know about how UCLA dorms authenticate internet users:[ul]
[<em>]The first time you connect, you can’t do anything until you try to visit an external website on your browser.
[</em>]If you run Windows or Mac OS, you will be asked to log in and download SafeConnect. From then on, you will never have to log in again and your connection will be usable right when you connect.
[<em>]If you run Linux, you will be asked to log in every time because there (at least historically) has been no version of SafeConnect built for Linux.
[</em>]If you run something else (e.g. a phone or something else that can’t be recognized), you’re neither asked to log in nor to download any applications. However, every time you connect, you have to open a browser in order to proceed.
[/ul]</p>
<p>So why does the browser matter in all this? UCLA authenticates by browser user agent. Basically what I think is happening is that SafeConnect is failing partially, and so it’s using your browser to fill in the “gaps” of information it wants.</p>
<p>As an aside, something I don’t mind sharing now that I’ve graduated: you can spoof user agents. I won’t go into why that’s useful, but anyone reading this can probably guess.</p>