Searching this morning to try to fix a weird issue I am having and like always I type in what I am looking for into the firefox searchbox. Instantly I am redirected to a landing page that says it cant find www.google.com:
Now from here if I go to google.com its fine so they are just intercepting firefox to google searches.
This of course is powered by Yahoo! and then when I try to search I get like SIX(6) sponsored results before any organize stuff.
Now couple things could be happening.
1) It was a fluke… it happens
2) Someone thought hey lets block google searches in Nebraska nobody in Nebraska will tell.
Ill give it a bit and see how long they keep doing it for.
UPDATE 1 – 07:21
After a little more research I figured out what is going on. They are looking specifically for the client in the string.
If I do this: http://www.google.com/search?q=help&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a (which is the string from the searchbox in firefox).
I get redirected to the “we cant find google.com”
but if I change the client=somethingelse
Then it works fine.
I have also confirmed with other Lincoln nebraska users this is happening to them also.
UPDATE 2 – 09:00
Sometime between the 8 and 9 am CST they are no longer redirecting the search string.
Wonder who got bitched out =P
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Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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Interesting. Why wouldn’t there be shenanigans going on? It’s all about the benjamins
No one’s bidding on that term, so actually, it’s all about the market share!
gotta love all the fun things that happen between you and the server you are trying to get to…
Thats very bizarre
I wonder what the purpose of that was
If they would not find any results, what were those ‘web results’ meant for?
Wow, no one bids on the term “Google” in Yahoo.
Who would’ve known….
Sorry to tell you but I had this issue come up myself (it was similar, not exactly the same). It was not my ISP, it was a very nasty virus. I ended up having to reformat.
sorry but
1) I am on a mac so virus is pretty slim
2) every computer in our house windows/linux/mac is doing being redirected
Its probably a DNS issue on their end, but what you can do on your end is clear your browser cache and flush your DNS. Also, I’d make sure you don’t have any miscellaneous entries in your hosts file — usually spyware/adware exploits will modify your hosts file, unlikely in this case, but worth a look.
its definatly not a dns issue. As I said before I can goto http://www.google.com but when I search from firefox (it contains the firefox string) it redirects me
I think Yahoo is just desperate like always and instead of trying to do something to make people actually want to come to their website that hasn’t been updated since 99′ they result to schemes that don’t really work. It may be a mistake but with Yahoo who really knows.
Ahhh that sucks…
Good morning
Morning to you too.
Well this sort of stuff makes me glad I moved out of Lincoln, and back to Columbus…NE. Also Yahoo searches are weak so that is the first problem you should deal with.
Sounds like virus/adware/whatever activity to me: something hooked into your address bar that takes over certain addresses, hence why clicking a link to Google’s homepage gets you there but typing doesn’t.
and……. your wrong.
Shhh Nobody in Nebraska was suppose to recognize that. lol
Lol.
They sure didn’t notice the 4 different Schoemakers, who thought they’d notice this.
LOL…LOL
I just came back to see if there was anymore drama.
I’m from NE and I didn’t see it, but again I don’t use searches used by Yahoo.
Hi, morning
Very interesting…anybody has idea what is happening..?
Greetings from Phuket. As your screen says “ww23.rr.com” as the url where you are redirected to – it looks like your internet-provider is playing foul with you. They are inspecting every GET-Url from their customers … and when a programming-event is switched-on (firefox in Url) … zap – they are redirecting you.
Looks to me, like they hired some script-kiddies and this boys don’t know what they are doing
You think that’s bad.
My dad’s dell laptop has been doing this ever since he got it. He can never get on any site, not just Google, and has to go through dell search.
I’d format that thing. Don’t allow them to make money off of him through dirty tricks!
It’s his company laptop, and he’d lose a lot of data if he formatted it. Plus, his IT admin would go nuts.
Also, I think Dell got what they deserved, because they’ve now shifted all future purchases over to HP
I think his it admin should get this fixed and setup his computer properly.
That is because dell’s are cheap, and worthless.
I had that issue before.
Just set your DNS server to openDNS. Timewarner DNS servers suck so bad..
Adi
Wow that is interesting and fucked up at same time!
This is crazy! – someone’s headed to the UnEmp Line…..
I had the exact problem back in October and had no clue what was going on…it lasted about 1 day before it resolved on its own. At that time my ISP was comcast and when I did ask them for tech help, they told me to reinstalled windows…as much as I laughed at that suggestion, I kept wondering how many people before me might have taken that advice…
Funny how people like to blame Windows for everything…
they must have heard about you stuffing that cat into your bong
Its quite strange. I have never seen such a thing
Bizarre. I wonder if it was happening anywhere else as well, just not being reported?
Hey Jeremy,
This is a similar reason to why I quit using OpenDNS, they kinda broke firefox’s “awesome-bar”. Instead of returning a bad host which was firefox’s cue to hit google with a search OpenDNS would redirect to it’s search page (powered by google?).
If this is filtering on the client string then it’s altogether more sinister. Could be that ISP’s are being idiots again and considering the search deal revenue mozilla get from firefox’s search as being theirs and how dare a lowly browser think it can make money from their bytes in the pipes!
Give em hell!
I hate stuff like this, had them on Internet Explorer for a while it’s weird that it happened to firefox.
Jeremy,
That is strange. I’ve had firefox crash before (too many open tabs..) but this is odd.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
http://www.twitter.com/nachase
I’ve seen this over the past several weeks on multiple computers here in lincoln. Way to call them out on it!
I thinks it will be somewhat technical problem.
Well I have not faced this ever and don’t want to see it. I am wondering what could be the exact reason for this.
Someone took a bribe.
Sounds like nebraska is turning into the middle east with all of that search regulating.
Sounds like a great idea, can we do this and redirect to our affiliate sites of various searches?
I have never seen such a thing
Fishy stuff going on. Thanks for investigating.
f’n flagrant foul right there…. unsportsmanlike conduct 15 yard penalty….. google should return the favor and block time warner searches. as a time warner customer in california i have experienced this for other sites…. usually of the adult variety.
I like to read: “We could not find http://www.google.com” . It’s funny
Well seems to me that Jeremy raise this issue and many people came to know about this. Otherwise many people have misconception about this.
When I was visiting a friend in NYC I frequently had a similar issue with RoadRunner, I wish they didn’t feel the need to hijack “regular” 404 pages or at least that they’d perfect their system such that it doesn’t mess up pages that shouldn’t come back as 404
mmmh, thats interesting, it seems its only for nebraska, never got such an issue.
Never had that problem either.
Well this sort of stuff makes me glad I moved out of Lincoln, and back to Columbus…NE. Also Yahoo searches are weak so this is the first problem you should deal with.
Someone dislikes your love with Google
-Mike
You very likely have the new firefox virus called Vundo, I explained how to get rid of it at this address. We had a nasty spell with it for a week. This is the solution to it: http://spillspace.com/2009/new-firefox-virus/
When the Titans Clash, things like this happens. It’s called “survival of the fittest”
I sure hope we don’t get in the way of such clashes.
contends issues available