I used to solve crosswords but haven't looked at one in a long while now. I never took to the American kind which tend to be more a test of your GK but prefer the cryptic ones that you get in the Times of India or most British newspapers. The one in the The Daily Telegraph used to be free and provided you a java version which was quite nice. But I noticed recently that all the Brit newspapers have made the crosswords a pay-to-use feature

I recently came across this site Susannah's Cryptic Crosswords which has hints and stuff.

Come to think of it, my passion for crosswords dates back a goodish 20 years when the Indian Express ran a series of articles titled How to Solve Crossword puzzles. Till then I had made do with the simple Crossword in the sunday paper. The charm of the cryptic is the certainty of your answer. Unlike the protagonist in the RK Narayan story, you have not to fret about hope, dope and rope.

The Hindu's so called cryptic crossword is a travesty, with dreadfully contrived words to make anagrams, nonsense sentences and redundant words galore.

The weekday TOI borrows its crosswords from some British newspaper, but the Sunday version is indigenous and so rather questionable at best.