As of sometime in December, whenever I type keywords into my address bar, it takes me to a Charter Communications search page "powered by Google." Besides being annoying on principal and the fact that I'm loading a page I don't want just to see my search results crammed into some small frame within that site, this also defeats google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" ability that I appreciate.

I have had this problem in the past when stuff (Like AVG) puts it own addon into Firefox that changed the default search to Yahoo and I knew how to fix it:

-Firefox config
-Set keyword.url value = http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=

However, in this particular case, I changed that value but as soon as the browser closes, the value for keyword.url has changed back to "http://www.charter.net/google/index.php?q="

This just really pisses me off. My ISP shouldn't be able to force my search through their own website's google powered search. I can't figure out why this value keeps changing as soon as Firefox is reloaded. I am assuming it has something to do with cookies maybe?

I have cleared my cookies, reinstalled firefox etc. I have also read this article: http://netsecurity.about.com/od/webbrowsersecurity/ss/charterhijack_5.htm that I thought would help, but after I "opted out" on Charter's website, it has done the same thing still.

Any thoughts, suggestions, similar experiences?


[Edited on January 10, 2010 at 11:17 PM. Reason : ]

1/10/2010 11:16:18 PM

did you call them about it?

1/10/2010 11:28:28 PM

Sounds like they need a ddos on the hijacking page

1/10/2010 11:29:53 PM

Yes I called once (before Christmas) and they told me to go to http://optin.charter.net to change my opt out / opt in settings. Ironically enough, that page doesn't even exist. After doing a google search for the address they gave me, I ran across an article (the one I linked to) that confirmed the address they give out does not exist, but gave a different address ww11.charter.net/options

I have my cookies on accept and chose to "opt out" (stupid that they automatically opt you in without letting you know they were even doing this) and selected google but it didnt do anything. It still resets keyword.url to the google-powered charter upon firefox restart.

I can call again but their customer supports sucks. I was out of town for close to 3 weeks after I called and have only been back in town less than a week, and figured I would ask on here first since they were 0 help last time.

1/10/2010 11:34:26 PM

change your DNS?

1/10/2010 11:53:04 PM

Quote :

"change your DNS?"

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

1/11/2010 12:25:20 AM

change your DNS

1/11/2010 2:44:07 PM

Cool, thanks a ton. I'll try that out tonight when I get home.

1/11/2010 3:09:05 PM

Ya this is a DNS redirect. Cookies suck anyway. They need to have it remember it on their end, not yours.

Yet one more reason to hate all cable internet providers.

1/11/2010 3:50:22 PM

15mbit/1.5mbt @ 54.95/mo = 1 reason to love mine.

1/11/2010 3:52:28 PM

Changed my DNS to the Google Public DNS and ran a tracert to make sure it was set right. I'm gonna stick with Google's DNS settings anyways, but as soon as I close firefox and reopen it again, keyword.url's value changed back to charter's site.

1/11/2010 8:35:28 PM

you mean nslookup?

Such a random issue, sorry I've never heard of this. It almost seems like it's a product of

"Firefox - Powered by Charter Communications"

Like how AOL used to hijack IE back in the day.

[Edited on January 11, 2010 at 10:02 PM. Reason : .]

This /. article from 2007 has a corporate number listed, no idea if it's still legit or if you've already stumbled upon it.
Charter Corporate Complaint Line: 314-288-3150

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/15/0432259


Ok, I just took this opportunity to change my home router's DNS from OpenDNS to Google and even though my DNS servers are 8.8.8.8, currently firefox is still routing my keywords to OpenDNS's proprietary search hook/url. So it's probably going to take some clearing of cookies/cache/user.js to get the change to stick?

[Edited on January 11, 2010 at 10:14 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2010 9:59:47 PM

appreciate the help, I will try calling them again to see if I can get this resolved. I know this probably seems stupid (and might seem stupid to them), I just got really used to typing keywords in

1/11/2010 11:24:50 PM

It's not stupid -- it's the same blatant hijacking akin to malware and spyware practices imho.

1/12/2010 1:19:36 AM

yeah, it's definitely classifiable as some sort of malware - it's changing configuration parameters in your browser without you opting in to the changes, for god's sake.

i'd be surprised that none of the blogs have picked up on this, but i guess not that many people have charter (and the majority of the ones that do don't care).

i'd sort of like to see the output from a hijackthis log if you would care to run that for me.

1/13/2010 8:11:03 AM