ISP screwing with IE9 Search...

Does anybody know how exactly this works: I have used the address bar in IE to do searches for a long time now, and this had worked fine until a few months ago. So, I would just type my search terms in the address bar in IE8, and the browser would then submit the search to my default search engine (happens to be Bing, but it doesn't matter). This suddenly stopped working a few months ago, and instead I would get a gloriously useless search page hosted by my ISP (Wideopenwest). After I upgraded to IE9, I was happy to see that the usual functionality of the now combined search/address bar was back. However, that joy was short-lived, because after a few weeks I am now back to the idiotic search screen of the ISP.

I should say that this behavior only occurs when I am at home. At work, my Search/Address Bar behaves the way it should.

Can anybody explain this behavior? Is there a way to fix this?

P.S.: By the way, this screwy behavior even occurs when I turn on search suggestions by the search engine, and then click on a suggested search.

 

It is your ISP's DNS Helper (Comcast does the same thing but only if you mistype a full url) it redirects to their "search" page. Usually burried on the ISP support site there is a way to opt out, but it is difficult.

 

They are doing a dns hijack.

Basically, when you type something in the url bar the browser would go and try to load the page, and when it gets a response from the dns servers that there are no webservers with that domain name (which is the case with all searches), then the browser takes over and sends you to your defined search site (in this case bing).

However, in your case your isp is NOT telling the browser that the search term/domain does not exist, and is redirecting you to their own site.

Two options, you can either try and opt out of their dns redirecting, or switch your router/computer to use different dns servers (like googles, which is 8.8.8.8).

 

Ah, thanks guys! I did look around, and I found the link to opt out of this crap. Rep to both of you!

 

Try to set a restriction like:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Infodelivery\Restrictions]
"NoChangeDefaultSearchProvider"=dword:00000001

I have the NoSearchBar restriction active also. It's in the same folder.

 

That's something totally different - as others said it's just a simple DNS redirect.

I would change DNS servers and use OpenDNS or Verizon's (4.2.2.1) or even Google (8.8.8.8) instead.

 

Wow, that is a dirty thing to do even by ISP standards.

 

Hey, it's an American business, what do you expect? If the search results they offer weren't entirely useless, and if I would therefore ever be tempted to click on any of the links on those useless pages of theirs, then they would probably even make a bit of money out of that scheme...

However, like I said, they do offer a link to opt out of this cr@p, so I'm all good now.