The Ubuntu Live CD I gave you has Firefox and Thunderbird on it in addition to OpenOffice. I use Thunderbird to read newsgroups with as well as email.
WiFi access points are rarely free, BTW. Unless a) someone's been stupid enough to set it up without encryption, or b) you somehow acquire the WEP key. They tend to be gateways to a broadband connection though, so useful for downloading stuff. That said, my Palm Tungsten C is an excellent WiFi sniffer; I trialled an app recently that basically works as a WEP cracker. It's less intrusive to warchalk with a Palm than it is a laptop. The app was useful enough that I'm seriously considering paying full price for it.
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WiFi access points are rarely free, BTW. Unless a) someone's been stupid enough to set it up without encryption, or b) you somehow acquire the WEP key. They tend to be gateways to a broadband connection though, so useful for downloading stuff. That said, my Palm Tungsten C is an excellent WiFi sniffer; I trialled an app recently that basically works as a WEP cracker. It's less intrusive to warchalk with a Palm than it is a laptop. The app was useful enough that I'm seriously considering paying full price for it.