The Intrusive Login Screen
When you connect to a public Wi-Fi network at a coffee shop, airport, or hotel, you usually need to accept terms and conditions or enter a password on a special login page. This page is called a “Captive Portal.” Google Chrome has a feature that actively detects these networks and automatically opens a new tab to force the login page to appear. While this is helpful if you want to use the internet immediately, it is incredibly annoying if you are just sitting in a cafe working on local files and do not want Chrome aggressively interrupting your workflow every time your laptop connects to the open network.
How to Disable Captive Portal Detection (Windows)
To stop Chrome from hijacking your screen, you must disable the underlying network detection system. On Windows, this is handled by a specific registry key that Chrome relies on.
1. Open the Start menu, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to the following path in the left-hand sidebar:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet
3. In the right-hand pane, look for a key named EnableActiveProbing.
4. Double-click on EnableActiveProbing.
5. Change the “Value data” from 1 (Enabled) to 0 (Disabled).
6. Click OK and restart your computer.
From now on, Windows (and by extension, Chrome) will not actively ping Microsoft servers to check for internet connectivity, completely disabling the automatic captive portal popup.
How to Disable Captive Portal Detection (macOS)
On a Mac, the captive portal detection is hardcoded into the operating system and affects Safari and Chrome equally. You must disable it via the Terminal.
1. Open the Terminal application (you can find it using Spotlight search).
2. Paste the following command and press Enter:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.captive.control Active -bool false
3. Type your Mac administrator password and press Enter. (The characters will not show up on the screen as you type; this is normal).
4. Restart your Mac.
The captive portal assistant is now disabled. If you ever actually want to log into the coffee shop Wi-Fi, you will need to open Chrome manually and type a non-secure website address (like http://neverssl.com) to force the login page to appear on your own terms.