Yahoo offering free Wi-Fi in NYC for a year

Search engines are celebrating the holidays by offering users free internet and New York City is getting a special treat.

First, Google announced free Wi-Fi hotspots at 47 airports around the nations from today until Jan. 15, now Yahoo wants a piece of the pie.

(Click here to see a full list of airports where Google will be offering free WiFi.)

Yahoo said Tuesday it is partnering with the Times Square Alliance to bring free Wi-Fi service to over half a million people that frequent Times Square daily for one year.

A Yahoo logo in New York's Times Square where the company is offering free Wi-Fi access for laptop and smartphone users for a year. (CREDIT: Yahoo)

The Wi-Fi service will be available on PCs and smartphones.

To kick off the service, free coffee was offered at the Times Square Internet Cafe on the Broadway Pedestrian on Tuesday.

When logging on using a laptop, Yahoo will take you to this landing page.

To activate the WiFi feature on phones, a user needs to open their browser and click on the "Get Started" button on the mobile landing page, Yahoo said.

This will then take the user to Yahoo's mobile homepage (http://m.yahoo.com), where users can access content and services from across the Internet.