It’s great to use free Wi-Fi and hop on the Internet. But, keep in in mind there are a lot of other folks that tap into the same public Wi-Fi. Usually, 1 out of 10 are bad eggs. You catch my drift. You have to be on the look out and protect yourself against these bad eggs.
Anti-virus software will not protect you from public Wi-Fi drifters. Keep in mind that these public, especially free, hotspots are an open network. No security, no nothing. It is very hackable.
In order to protect yourself, you should install Hotspot Shield on your computer. It will encrypt your traffic back and forth to the Internet. That way, the bad eggs cannot decode and intercept your info. Currently, this software is Windows support and Mac support compatible, and is free. You can upgrade it for an ad-free version, but there’s really no need to do this.