> There are also plenty of other wifi connection test domains [1][2] around that he didn't have to buy one.
Strictly speaking, I have enough garbage domains that I could have used any one of them, but when I found a cute short name I grabbed it. ... Hosting it myself means my computer doesn't tell someone additional where I am all the time ... Although since the requests are plain http, that doesn't really mean much.
Also note:
C:\> curl http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html | xxd
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 69 100 69 0 0 69 0 0:00:01 --:--:-- 0:00:01 489
00000000: 3c48 544d 4c3e 3c48 4541 443e 3c54 4954 <HTML><HEAD><TIT
00000010: 4c45 3e53 7563 6365 7373 3c2f 5449 544c LE>Success</TITL
00000020: 453e 3c2f 4845 4144 3e3c 424f 4459 3e53 E></HEAD><BODY>S
00000030: 7563 6365 7373 3c2f 424f 4459 3e3c 2f48 uccess</BODY></H
00000040: 544d 4c3e 0a TML>.
That LF at the end means now I need to figure out how to get that into the registry (maybe it's trivial but it takes an additional ΔT and ΔW.
As for the opensuse one, I am not sure if the check works with empty content. Again, not hard to figure out, but additional ΔT and ΔW.
Plus, these sites can change whatever they do at any time and if I customize to match them, then I am at their beck and call as opposed to controlling both sides of the equation.