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I just read this question How does Firefox know my ISP login page? which made me think of a related issue:

On all devices I have, the captive portal is opened using, I guess, a "browser view" rather than the regular browser. In some cases where I have to enter login details to get access, I would prefer to use a regular browser that remembers passwords but, especially on phones, it is hard or impossible to copy the URL (or even see the full address) for use in a regular browser.

Is there a way around this?

Applies to Android, iOS and Mac OS X (and maybe Windows but I rarely use it so I don't remember how it handles this situation). Some miniscule solution that detects the URL you are redirected to and lets me copy it would be good enough.

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  • As the problem only exists on phones, this question might be off-subject here.
    – harrymc
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 7:41
  • I have this problem on my Macbook Pro to. A modal browser window with very limited functionality - e.g., I can't copy the URL or save passwords - appears when I connect to a captive portal.
    – d-b
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 18:31
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    Try the solution from this post to disable Apple's Captive Network Assistant (CNA) : sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.captive.control Active -boolean false.
    – harrymc
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 19:48
  • This is a function of the operating system, both on the Mac and on mobile devices. If the OS supports some form of embedded browser it will often route such requests automatically to this internal browser. The mobile parts of this question are off topic here. I will edit the question to remove references to mobile.
    – music2myear
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 23:49

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When a captive portal is in use, it redirects all plain-HTTP requests, not just the specific probe requests used by browsers.

So when you're using a normal browser, you can just open any non-HTTPS website – such as neverssl.com – and the ISP will redirect you to the correct login page.

(Indeed this is how everyone used to log into captive portals, before browsers and operating systems started autodetecting them.)

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