The news are out! We can finally disclose what we have been working on during the last few months - Wifi.com completed the acquistion of Whisher in mid-January.

Wifi.com is the logical progression for Whisher, as it combines the best domain possible for a WiFi-related service, our mature client and backend technology, and their experienced team which brings on board business development and marketing experience, as well as US-based operations which can help us grow considerably. We already have exciting deals in the pipeline which will soon be announced.

We would like to thank our fans, our users, our investors, and even our critics, for all their help, feedback, input and support during these three years. With your continued help we can now make wifi.com grow way further!

Below is a short FAQ on the deal.

Q. What does this mean for Whisher users?

A. Whisher users don’t need to worry about service continuity. Simply download the new Wifi.com plugin, available at http://www.wifi.com/download.html. Uninstall your current plugin (Mac users, remember to reboot after you remove the Preferences Pane), and install the new one, entering your current Whisher login & password. Wifi.com uses the Whisher technology for its backend, website and client plugins.

Q. What happened to our shared hotspots, and the maps?

A. The reason the maps have been offline for the last few weeks is that at one point we had to switch our database over to the wifi.com servers, and thus the maps started working at http://www.wifi.com/find.php. We also have a WiFi directory at http://www.wifi.com/location/. The hotspots you have shared are all safe, and available under your account at http://www.wifi.com/ - nothing has been lost.

Q. Will you be offering premium WiFi access?

A. Right now wifi.com will concentrate on the social aspects of sharing. Control who you share with, add as much free WiFi hostpots to the community, and promote interaction between users. Eventually, we will start offering access to commercial and premium hotspots through per-minute and subscription models.

Q. Why hasn’t there been much activity around Whisher during the past few weeks?

A. We have been asked this many times, and we even read comments on other blogs that we were about to shut down - nothing further from the truth! What we have been doing is working extremely hard with wifi.com in order to bring the new service online as quickly as possible. We are a small team, and thus we could not dedicate enough resources to developing Whisher at the same time.

Q. What happens with the Whisher team?

A. Mike Puchol joins wifi.com as CTO, while Ferran Moreno and David Douek both go onto other exciting enterprises, about which we will soon hear great things about. You can find out more about the new team at wifi.com com at http://www.wifi.com/aboutus.html

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!