My ISP hijacked my search settings and called it a "service"

[JoeyGee]

I use Google as my default search engine, so whenever I use the search bar in IE8, it normally brings up Google results, which is how I set it up.

The other day, I noticed my searches were re-directed to a search page from my ISP (Buckeye Express in NW OH ). I was steamed, but couldn't do anyhting at that time. I just spent an hour trying to stop that--including all the obvious search settings that were correct, trying Google's DNS servers (yes, I was grabbing at straws...) and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing worked.

Finally, I found that if I scrolled down to the bottom of the page, in tiny letters on the right hand side is a link to "opt out of this service". Nice. Screw with my PC, send it to YOUR crappy page, drive up YOUR stats and call it a "service".

[pelligrini]

Not cool, I'd be a little peeved as well.

I'm really getting tired of all these packaged installs too, always trying to install some toolbar or browser. Many of them are opt out. Gotta pay attention to installs & updates now. Just quickly clicking through one can cause problems.

[scmhogg]

Semper vigilans.

The crooks are out there to get us. Even paranoics have real enemies.

Today I got six emails telling me my paypal account was frozen. All I had to do was give them my info and they would fix it.

Steve

[Pappy]

Today I got six emails telling me my paypal account was frozen. All I had to do was give them my info and they would fix it.

Steve

Get those a lot, usually to 1 of my 3 emails is that is not linked to my PayPal account.

There also seems to be a lot of problems with the service to my Wells Fargo account. Probably wouldn't have as many problems with it if I had a Wells Fargo account?????????

[tstombaugh]

Watch out for pre-installed software by vendors on new computers. My new
eMachine came with Norton antivirus. I deleted the Norton software because I use
another antivirus software which I like much better.
Somehow and someway I got charged for the Norton software on my credit card. I am in the process of getting credit for the billing from my credit card provider since I cannot give the Norton folks the serial number of the software so they can give me credit.

What is really odd, when you call the Norton telephone number for help, you get
get a pre-recorded message about recent charges to your credit card and how to
resolve them. I eventually talked to a live person, but she was unable to reverse the
charge. The charge does not show up on their computer because by their own admission was pre-installed and not purchased from them but yet they charged me for the software.

[L. D. Jeffries]

Same thing happened to my wife's PC. Dear ole MicroSoft--part of their name is right; "soft" in the head!! She opened her browser and some strange page came up called "Ask Me" or something like that. Only problem was she could't get rid of it. Took about 30 minutes of screwing around to finally be able to go back to her normal opening page. I keep telling her; "Should'a got an Apple".

[Cochese]

That's Microsoft's fault?

[cork58]

Check out "namebench". Took me about 10 minutes to find out my provider is 18.6% slower than another one offered nearby. The great thing about it is all you do is put the provided dns in your router setting and pop! speeds right up.

I found the information on the Kim Komando [spelling not right ?] web site. It will be under downloads complete with instructions.

Found the link just in case anybody would like to check it out

Link: http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

[gerti]

Check out "namebench". Took me about 10 minutes to find out my provider is 18.6% slower than another one offered nearby.

It is not your ISP per se but the DNS service, which is just a small (but crucial) part of your browsing experience.

The problem with using a generic DNS service though is that in some cases it will seriously slow down your access (I think recently an iTunes example was mentioned).

Reason: Say you are in NY, and use a NY DNS server. You want to contact a site that provides large amounts of data (music, video). A lot of these sites have servers all over the country, and they pick which one to connect you to based on the location of the DNS server. So in the above case you get a fast connection to a NY server.

Now say (for example) XYZs free DNS is faster than your ISPs DNS, and you switch to that. And XYZs DNS server sits in LA.

Now when you connect to the before mentioned site, you get connected to their LA server, and end up downloading music/video across country instead of across city, which can be dramatically slower.

So caveat empor!