Is your ISP hijacking YOUR browser search preferences?

Many Internet Service Providers are overriding your choice of search engine on your own computer so they can show their OWN search page and advertisements, regardless of what you chose for your search provider.  Yes, this is slimy and unethical, but what can you do about it?

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First, you need to test to see if your ISP has actually hijacked your browser’s search settings.

Do this:  In your browser, set your preferred search engine:

  • Chrome:  Open the wrench menu, choose “Options”, in “Search” section, pick a search provider, any one of them.
  • FireFox:  [Alt]+[D], type about:config in the address bar, then [Enter].  find browser.search.defaultenginename and set it to Google or Yahoo or Bing.
  • Inter Explorer:  Stop using this browser and use Chrome or FireFox.

Now, in your address bar, type a search term like, stop sopa then hit [Enter].  Did your search results show up in your selected search engine?  If not, your ISP has hijacked your personal preferences.  What do you think about that?  You like it?  You like that someone else has decided they know better?  Of course you don’t.  Now, call your ISP and bitch.  Bitch like it’s going out of style.  What right do they have to do that to you?  Then, read below to find out how to override their hijacking.

Did you search come up in your chosen search provider?  Still doesn’t mean your ISP didn’t hijack it.  It just may be that the search provider you chose is the same one your ISP chose.  Now, go back up to the bullet list and change your search provider to something else and repeat your search.  Did it come up in the new search provider?  Then you’re golden.  Your ISP has NOT overridden your choice.  But what if they do in the future?  How can you prevent it from happening in the first place?

How to tell your ISP to go to hell and tack control back of your search preferences:

You need to change your computer’s DNS settings.  Don’t be intimidated.  It’s easy.  Here’s how in Windows 7:

  1. Open your start menu and type “network and sharing center”, then click the name of your network as in the section below below:
    1. image
    2. image
  2. Click the “Properties” button.
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  3. Then select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCPIPv4)” and click “Properties”.
  4. In the “Inter Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties” dialog box, in the lower half for DNS server addresses, WRITE DOWN WHAT’S THERE IN CASE YOU NEED TO CHANGE IT BACK!!!!!  Then enter the values shown below:
    1. image
  5. Click OK, OK, then close.

Go back up to the top to verify your search provider preferences are now respected.

So, what did we actually do?

When you type in a domain name like CSharpner.com, your computer doesn’t know how to get to the server that hosts that web site.  Your computer has to get to web sites via their IP addresses.  So, the structure of the internet has servers that will convert the domain name you provide into a current IP address for that site.  These servers are called Domain Name Servers (DNS).  There are thousands and thousands of Domain Name Servers, but you only use 1 or 2.  Your ISP has their own DNS servers and most likely, your computer is using THEIR DNS servers.

Now, here’s what normally happens when you enter an invalid domain name:  Your bad domain name is sent to the DNS servers, which don’t find it and return an error that your browser then displays, unless you have a default search provider set up in your browser.  In that case, instead of displaying an error, your browser then submits that text to your preferred search engine and then displays the results.

So, here’s what your ISP did to hijack your preferences:  When you enter an invalid domain name, instead of your ISP’s DNS servers returning an error to your browser, they instead do NOT return an error and will do their OWN search with a search company they’ve partnered with to get a percentage of the advertising revenue.  So, your browser will NEVER receive an error from your ISP’s DNS servers, hence your search preferences in your browser are never used.  You’ve now been hijacked.

What we did with the instructions above was told your computer to NOT use your ISPs DNS servers, but instead use some free DNS servers whose IP addresses happen to be 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3.  These aren’t the only ones out there that you can choose from.  Google hosts some.  Their IP addresses are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Now, if your ISP did, in fact, hijack your search settings.  Call them up and let them know what you think about it.  I highly recommend switching to one of their local competitors and let your old ISP know why you’re switching.

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