Integrated WiFi capability is great, but you can't get on a lot of available WiFi if you don't know the password. I've posted a Python application that can serve up a little website on the ESP8266 running as a WiFi access point. It can scan for other visible access points and let you record their password to a local file if they are not open (and you happen to know it).
https://github.com/carterw/esp8266Wifi