captive.apple.com?

Hello hopelessness4ever,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! I found this answer on a previous discussion about the same topic:

"A captive portal is a network that forces an HTTP client to see a special web page (usually for authentication purposes) before using the Internet normally. A captive portal turns a Web browser into an authentication device. These are commonly used on wifi networks where authentication to the private network is done via a login browser page, rather than via the use of a WEP or WPA2 key, for example in some coffee shops and airports, and hotspot providers such as The Cloud and ATT-Wifi.

On Apple devices, if a captive portal is identified, a special application in /System/Library/CoreServices called Captive Network Assistant.app is opened. This is a very limited browser, separate to Safari, with no address bar or navigation buttons. . . "

Hope you find that helpful!