Malformed url's go to MS? Why?

Brain Drop · 02-23-2005, 07:50 AM

I recently noticed that, using firefox, if I type a url of the form http://http://www.whatever.com, it will go to microsoft.com. I believe someone else mentioned this here, though I cannot find it now. Anyone know what is going on? I admit I do not know much about the workings of Firefox, could this be something bundled into an extension? I also remember reading of Firefox closing from time to time on people, mine does this now, too.

theYinYeti · 02-23-2005, 08:58 AM

It depends on your provider.
For example, my ISP is Club-Internet. If I type a non-existent URL, I have a Club-Internet page displayed, which explains how URLs should be written.

Yves.

AlexV · 02-23-2005, 09:05 AM

Since http://http:// is not a valid URL Firefox passes it to Google with the I'm Feeling Lucky Option. Apparently Microsoft.com is what comes back. To test this just go to google type http in the search field and click search. Guess who comes up at the top of the list?

BajaNick · 02-23-2005, 09:20 PM

Same thing happens to me and Firefox got hijacked on my system just recently and every link I clicked on went to MS.com so I am going to ditch FF soon, even though thats what I am using now.

homey · 02-24-2005, 09:55 PM

Before you do anything drastic, you may check out the fix at http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#beh_search

Quote:

Change the search mode in the address field

By default, if you enter a search term in the address field and press Enter, a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search is performed, and you're taken to the first result of that search directly. If you prefer to see the standard search result list instead, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Change to normal Google search:
user_pref("keyword.URL", "http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=");

On my FC3 system, I modified that abit .....

kwrite /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/defaults/pref/firefox.js

Find this line

Code:

 
pref("keyword.URL", "http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=");

and replace it with this

Code:

pref("keyword.URL", "http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=");

vincebs · 02-25-2005, 06:52 PM

whenever i enter http://http://... where ... is anything, I get taken to elpais.es, some newspaper in Spain. ???