We are excited to announce the release of an updated version of the Windows Whisher plugin, with many fixes and improvements, most of which affect the stability of the plugin. Most notably, we have corrected various issues affecting login at commercial hotspots, after our extensive testing and certification at the WeRoam labs, and fixed various memory leaks and crash conditions.

Additionally, the account creation process has been streamlined by moving it to the Whisher web site. As an innovative feature, once you create your account on the website, it will be automatically applied to your Whisher plugin, so you don’t even need to enter the details in the user preferences.

Go ahead and download the update!

We’re glad to announce that we have made available for download a new version (04/10) of the Mac OS X Whisher plugin, compatible with Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5). We have fixed some issues affecting compatibility with Tiger and PPC machines, plus some fixes on connectivity to commercial hotspots.

The Whisher plugin, as can be seen in the screenshot below, adds additional useful information to the standard Airport menu, and enables you to seamlessly connect to commercial WiFi hotspots with a universal currency, WiFi Out.

It also makes sharing your WiFi and connecting to other shared WiFi hotspots easy! Simply click on the ‘Share this WiFi…’ menu, fill in the details about your hotspot on the web form, and you’re set:

(Click on the image for a larger view).

If you would like some free WiFi Out credit to test at our network of over 60.000 commercial locations, such as airports, hotels and coffee shops, drop us a line at info@whisher.com. As always, suggestions and comments are welcome!

We are excited to announce that we have integrated WeRoam’s 35.000 hotspots to our global WiFi footprint. WiFi Out credit will now allow you to connect to over 60.000 commercial hotspots around the world, such as Airpath in the United States, KPN in the Netherlands, Golden Telecom in Russia, and many more which you can see on our coverage maps.

Thanks to Whisher, connecting to WiFi everywhere is no longer an expensive and cumbersome experience!

For more details, you can check out our press release.

You can now use your Nokia N95, N82, E61 or any other WiFi enabled Nokia phone to connect to commercial hotspots or Whisher shared hotspots around the world. Following our philosphy of integrating instead of introducing a new user experience, we have turned Whisher into a plugin for the Nokia WiFi menu.

How does it work?

Simply start your web browser or any other application that connects to the Internet, and you will see “1Click Whisher” in the connection menu. Select it to see which signals are compatible! The Whisher logo shows Whisher shared hotspots, the $ logo shows commercial hotspots.

In addition to the connection, we added some other cool features:

• Automatic connection: chose this option to let the Whisher plugin automatically chose the best available network. When you chose the “1Click Whisher” signal, it will scan for WiFi networks in the vicinity and connect automatically.
• Virtual Signal: You can set up “1Click Whisher” as the default access point in all applications. With the automatic mode, it will allow you to connect in a seamless way, without having to care about hunting for WiFi.

To download the Whisher plugin, simply point your mobile phone to http://nokia.whisher.com - the installation will start automatically. If you want to download the installation file to your computer instead, you can visit our download page, where you will also find versions of the Whisher plugin for Windows and Mac. If you are a first time user, you can create a new account by registering here, or if you already have an account for one of our desktop plugins, you can use it on your Nokia too.

Free WiFi for beta testers!

The product is still in beta and we are looking for feedbacks and bug reports. If you want to be a beta tester, we will give you free WiFi at all our partner hotspots in exchange. If you are interested, please send us an email to info@whisher.com with “Nokia Beta Testing” in the subject line.

Red Herring today announced that Whisher was named a Finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.

We’re thrilled to be given this recognition and are looking forward to continue working hard to make Whisher even better and worthy of higher awards.

Whisher was already finalist in CNET’s Webware 100 awards and proudly listed as one of the Top Ten Startups to watch by Laptop Magazine.

If you have an account with us, you can now login on the ‘My Account’ section of the Whisher website, from where you can manage your shared hotspots, buy WiFi Out credit, check the connections you have made, and more. You can click on the images we use below for larger, full-size versions.

My Account

To access your account, simply sign in by clicking on the link at the top right on the Whisher site:

Editing your profile

If you want to edit your personal profile (we only ask you for a username and email address when you create your account), simply click the ‘Edit your profile’ link, which will bring you to this page:

Simply add or change any missing field, and click ‘Apply changes’. You will now be able to buy WiFi Out credit without us asking for your billing details every time. The currency you choose here will be used throughout the Whisher website and plugin.

WiFi Out Sessions

Every time you visit a commercial hotspot (we will support viewing your sessions at shared hotspots soon), the session details are recorded and shown to you in this section. You can see when the session started, its duration and cost.

WiFi Out Purchases

As with WiFi Out Sessions, here we show you every credit purchase you make.

Shared Hotspots

A feature we have been getting many requests for, you can now edit all your shared hotspots from one central location. Change their name, welcome message, the icon that appears on the online maps, and even change sharing mode between public and private!

As you can see, we have been working really hard over the last few weeks to make Whisher even better, easier to understand, and user-friendly, without sacrificing our core values, easy WiFi sharing and simple, 1-Click connectivity. As always, comments, suggestions and constructive criticism is welcome!

We need beta testers for our Windows XP and Mac WiFi plugins. We will give away WiFi Out credit, so that you can connect for free at thousands of commercial hotspots all around the world, including the best hotel chains, airports, coffee shops and so on. We are literally everywhere, thanks to our roaming agreements with operators like Swisscom, BT Openzone, AT&T, Wayport, and many more.

Please take a look at our coverage maps, and if you’re ready to check how easy it is to connect to those hotspots around you, just send us an email at info at whisher dot com.

WiFi Out is like Skype Out, but instead of voice minutes it gives you WiFi access minutes. It works as a plugin, which embeds nicely into your operating system, and allows automatic access to both commercial hotspots and shared hotspots (those contributed by the people).

We look forward to giving you truly free WiFi!

After several months gathering feedback and reactions from our users, we decided to give Whisher a face lift, include the best ideas, and offer an improved, simplified WiFi experience.

So, what’s different?

Whisher is now a plugin instead of a standalone application. Why try to reinvent the wheel? Users already know how to use WiFi. Whisher is now completely integrated into the operating system, adding the WiFi Sharing and WiFi Out features.

WiFi Out? What is that?

In a few words, 1-Click access to commercial hotspots. Whisher now allows you to get online at more than 60.000 commercial hotspots around the world. It includes WiFi providers like BT Openzone, Orange, AT&T and many more. You can access them all with a unique credit: WiFi Out. Once you have purchased WiFi Out credit, you can simply go to the Starbucks around the corner and connect for a few minutes to check your mail. You don’t need to have a subscription or pay a minimum fee. With WiFi Out, if you don’t connect, you don’t pay!

We are looking for some motivated users in Europe and North America who would like to help us improve the brand new Whisher, for example, by testing WiFi Out, or helping us with bugs that may crop up. In exchange you will get free WiFi at all our commercial locations. If you are interested, send us an email with your details.

What about WiFi sharing?

WiFi sharing is still at the core of the new Whisher. You can contribute to the largest free WiFi network in the world, by registering your home WiFi with Whisher. As always, you can stop sharing at anytime with a single mouse click, and your connection remains encrypted and secure!

Any Mac love?

The Mac version is almost ready, and it will be launched very soon! Most of us at the office are Mac users, so we watch our Windows-toting peers with envy. The developer in charge is on a strict diet of cornflakes, and locked in a filing cabinet until he finishes it.

So is that it?

Not at all! In a few weeks, we will launch mobile Whisher plugin - watch this space. The developers in charge of this version are on an even stricter diet.

We are preparing to release a brand-new, fully revised version of Whisher with some exciting features, and this will cause some inevitable downtime on our servers, while we prepare them for the new release. Thus, from 18:00 CET today to around 12:00 CET February 1st (tomorrow), your clients may not function correctly. This does not affect any data, only the operational servers, so you don’t need to worry about losing your accounts or shared hotspots. The downtime may also affect our website, but only for a shorter period of time.

We thought you might be interested in knowing some statistics about the WiFi sharing habits worldwide, so here you have the top 10 countries where Whisher is helping build truly Free WiFi:

1. United states
2. Spain
3. France
4. Switzerland
5. United Kingdom
6. Italy
7. Germany
8. Brazil
9. Netherlands
10. Portugal

We are literally everywhere, with WiFis being shared even in countries where one wouldn’t expect it to happen. Go and check by yourself in our WiFi coverage maps

In the meantime we keep working on Whisher 3.0, which should be available to beta testers before the end of this year.