The reason for doing this is simple: cash. ISPs earn money if you come to those search pages and use them to find what you are looking for. More often than not those search pages are not helpful at all. Here is why. Most of the time users know where they want to go if they mistype a url, say ghackss.net instead of ghacks.net. All that they would need to do to fix the error is by editing the url.

The page that the provider displays on the other hand uses a different url structure leaving the user with the only valid option to enter the url again in the address bar of the web browser. It would be possible to edit the url of the new page as well as it usually contains the entered domain name as a search term somewhere at the end.

Users with Internet Service Providers that redirect DNS errors have a few choices. Some ISPs have a page where the behavior can be changed manually. A second alternative would be to switch DNS servers. Again, some ISPs offer DNS servers that do not take part in those redirects but it is also viable to switch to open DNS server providers that do not redirect DNS errors.

The third option comes in the form of the No Redirect add-on for the Firefox web browser. The add-on is only suited for advanced users as it requires basic knowledge of regular expression to configure new Internet Service Providers. It comes with a few pre-configured including Verizon, Rogers and Earthlink but if the ISP is not among them it would be necessary to add the search page to the list of available ones. This is not as difficulty as it sounds though as it is possible to simply copy and edit the regular expression of the already included service providers and websites.

If the ISP is added properly the default “problem loading page” or “not found” page will be displayed instead of the redirected search page of the ISP. The main benefit of this is that it is now easy to edit the url that has been entered to visit the desired website.

No Redirect not only takes care of Internet Service Provider redirects but also to stop so called smart error pages. Smart error pages are used by some websites instead of the usual 404 error pages when a page cannot be found. You might have seen those at Microsoft.com for example where Microsoft displays all kind of “did you mean” information instead of an error message.

The final option – one which I was not able to get working – is the ability to always preview shortened urls. If anyone gets this working let us know in the comments.

NoRedirect is an interesting add-on for users who are using the Firefox web browser and are experiencing DNS error redirects or smart error pages that they do not want to see.

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The IP address. Your gateway to the internet. That little set of numbers that guarantees you can log on and check mail, watch videos, etc. This is something I only used to bother about when my internet connection stopped working and I needed to check if there was a problem from my end.

All this while, my ISP had assigned me a static IP address. Then, a few days ago, someone from the ISP called me up asking me to change some settings. Turns out they are now assigning dynamic IPs to their users.

While my internet experience hasn’t really changed significantly, I got curious about the merits and demerits of both types of IP addresses. From what I’ve gleaned so far, the type of IP address doesn’t matter for the average home user. However, if you run some kind of server like Web, FTP, Email etc. then you definitely need a static IP address. I’m still not sure which one is better though so I’d like to get ghacks readers’ opinions on the subject.

What kind of IP address do you use? Have you ever had problems and had to switch? What advantages and disadvantages have you noticed with dynamic and static IP addresses? Let me know in the comments.

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This of course leads to the question what Mr. Mueller wants to achieve by storing every single IP connection of every single individual that uses an ISP from the United States ? Is not the whole thing a complete waste of resources and time compared to the minimal gain ? What about the protection of minors then, this should be a valid point, don’t you think ?

You can only record something that is happening in the very moment. You then need to analyze the data and come to a conclusion. Does this help the minor before the lawbreaking ? Not very likely, don’t you think ? This could only work if someone knows where to look at in this incredible heap of data. This leads of course to the fact that the data can only be used to find out what really happened. Yes, that is past tense.

The crime already happened. No way to prevent it this way.

The European Union already launched a data retention law that forces every ISP to record online activities of their customers and store the records between 6 and 24 months. The reason was again to fight terrorism.

Now some politicians hold speeches where they want to use those information for finding out about other crimes as well, not only terroristic ones. You’ve downloaded a song from emule ? You went to a website that is forbidden in the country you are living in ? Music Industry would love to have the opportunity to search the data for people who traded music over the internet.

I just want to say that I’m against crime on the internet, against terrorism, against the abuse of minors and many other things on the internet. But I’m also against stupid laws by politicians who do not understand the concept of the internet and try to justify everything that removes rights from the people with the word terrorism.

Your privacy is at stake here. Fight for it, with everything that you have.

The most interesting fact about those laws ? Guess who is paying for them.. Yeah right, you are..

Read More:

“>FBI Director wants ISPs to track users

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