Way to safeguard laptop on public wifi (such as a coffeehouse?)

Hi,
Many thanks in advance for your attention.
Surfing the web on a public wifi (such as a coffee house crammed with other computers all using the same connection).
1. Is it safe just having Mac OSX's Firewall turned on?
2. I have heard and tried of an App called Hotspot (by Anchor Free). It supposedly makes your connection private on a public wifi, but:
3. Does it?
4. Who is Anchor Free? Little info on their website. They can can see all the websites you visit, passwords you type in, etc.
5. Does anyone have an opinion on Anchor Free?
6. Or of another way to safeguard one's connection in a public wifi setting?

1) What do you mean by safe? The firewall, properly set up, should be sufficient to prevent anyone accessing your data on your machine, but it will do nothing to prevent anyone capturing traffic between your machine and the wireless access point. If this traffic includes unencrypted userids and passwords (eg accessing a POP mail server) then any eavesdropper can subsequently access your mail, and possibly send mail from you as well. Encrypted traffic (eg https to your bank account) should be relatively safe.
2) The solution some people use is to make a Virtual Private Network connection back to eg their workplace. VPN encrypts all the traffic on the connection, and your laptop and its traffic is then as secure as it is in your workplace, where onward traffic is typically on wire, and so more-or-less invulnerable to eavesdroppers. Hotspot and similar offer an endpoint to set up a VPN connection to.
3) Yes, all your traffic in the coffee house will be encrypted on your laptop and decrypted at Anchor Free's server, where it will be forwarded to the appropriate destination.
4) Yes, they can see all your traffic. Some of it (https, encrypted email ...) will not be readable by them.
5) I have no knowledge of them.
6) See (2)
AK

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if you find any of this helpful . if you dont mind support the rating system.
"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
‎"I'm in a serious relationship with my Wi-Fi. You could say we have a connection."

Way to safeguard laptop on public wifi (such as a coffeehouse?)

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