Chilled Out Bearded Man

Years ago, I used to type in a search engine url, load that page, type my search into the input field, and click submit. That was years ago…

Nowadays, like I’m sure most of my compatriots do, I just type my searches straight into my browser. Since my search is obviously not a URL, I get redirected to the search engine results using the search engine set as the default keywords service in my browser. That stopped working for me recently. Now, instead of the URL redirecting to Google as my Firefox is set to do, it was instead redirecting to … searchresults . rcn . com.

It finally got on my nerves today and I decided to search for a solution. At first I found this article titled RCN Hijacking Mistyped URLs by Ed Hayes which recommended calling RCN as he had done. I didn’t want to call them, so I spent a few more minutes searching for another solution. Nothing else was really showing in google search results for this problem.

Then I discovered a link at the bottom of the RCN Yahoo search results page called Search Settings. Clicking this link brings you to a page that says:

About the Search Results Page

The search results on the prior page were provided to you because you entered keywords or an improperly formatted, currently unavailable, or nonexistent domain name into the address bar. This service is designed to enhance your web surfing experience.No software was installed on your computer for this service to work.

•  Would you like to opt out of this service?

If you would like to Opt Out of this service, please click here.

When I clicked on that link I was taken to a page that said the following:

Search Service Settings

OPT-IN Opt In  (Recommended) OR OPT-OUT Altavista TM AOL ® Ask.com TM Google TM Bing TM Yahoo ® None — DNS Error Page

Note: In order for opt-out to work properly, you need to accept a “cookie” indicating that you have opted out of this service. If you use a program that removes cookies, you will have to repeat this opt-out process when the cookie is deleted. The cookie placed on your computer will contain the site name: “.searchresults.rcn.com”.

I selected Google rather than a DNS error page, and was shown the final page of the opt out process.

SETTINGS CHANGED

Your preferences have been set, and will not have to be changed again as long as your browser cookies remain intact. If you would like to change your settings in the future, simply visit optin.searchresults.rcn.com.

If you select DNS error page, you get this result when you type an incorrect url or non-url:

http://www17.searchresults.rcn.com/not_found

This is actually problematic because it is a valid URL, so the browser gets confused and thinks it has found the valid URL you were looking for. They have in effect hijacked your ability to control what to do with an unresolvable URL. You can either opt in to use their custom Yahoo RCN search page, or else choose from one of their other choices. You are not given the choice to use the settings in your browser. It is not a true opt-out. In fact, as stated a few paragraphs above in the italics from their page, it says that you actually need to accept a cookie that in effect opts you in to their opt out system. Very backwards if you ask me.

You can read more about the browser Location Bar Search and how Firefox resolves unresolvable URLs and keyword searches here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_Search

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.URL

I wonder if the Search Settings was available to Ed on the Yahoo RCN search page when he was dealing with this problem a few months back or if RCN got wise and added this solution once they started getting a bunch of complaints. Either way, hope that helps people. And perhaps RCN can make a real Opt Out option that would allow our browsers to do the URL resolving. ISPs should be giving us an http error result, not a valid url result saying that it failed.