[mdlug] Background task accessing web pages

[David McMillan]

   Hey, all.  I'm currently stuck in France, at a hotel (companny trip, 
hence cheap) whose internet is "free"... as long as I keep opening up 
their ad-page front-end every 10min and begging for free access again. 
Any download that lasts more than 10min just isn't happening.  I could 
live with that, but getting constantly logged off every 10min is 
annoying -- any page I access gets re-directed to the "click on this ad 
for free access" page, and I have to click on the link.  And THEN re-do 
my URL, b/c the free-access page doesn't redirect to my original 
destination.  Welcome to ad-supported internet, I guess.  And no, 
there's no way to "buy up" to uninterrupted access.

   So, my thought:  how hard could it be to start a background task 
(maybe a lynx session) that would periodically open the free-access 
login page and click the correct links?

   The sequence is this:  try to open a page, get redirected to the 
free-access page.  Click a button on the page.  Page directs to an 
advertisement.  Click on the advertisement, which triggers a 10min 
window of free access *and* opens a new tab/window linked to by the ad.