www/****x.com redirects to comcast

[chadmg]

www/****x.com redirects to comcast. Since when did this start happening. You can replace the xxxx with anything. What domain do they own to do this? Or this just me since I use a comcast cable connection?

[robotsdobetter]

Just you.

[encyclo]

Do you mean it when you put a slash (/) after the www, rather than a dot? If yes, then you're saying that the address [www...] goes to your cable provider's portal site. This can be set up by them, and would affect only their customers. If you're using Internet Explorer, in the status bar at the bottom when on the Comcast site and when you go to the www/ address: does it say "Internet" or "Local Network"?

If you meant a dot rather than a slash, then it could mean that your cable provider is hijacking unknown or non-existent domain names and rediverting them to their portal site. They again could do this, but again only for their customers, not for the whole internet.

<added>Very strange - I just tested my link to [www...] in the above message, and I was redirected to [microsoft.com...] - I'm using Mozilla Firefox and running Linux. How did that happen?!</added>

[chadmg]

It's quite odd because there is nothing on my machine that would do this. So it leads me to believe that comcast does it on their end. It's not a local machine and it's not in my host file. It happens with [www...]

Odd.

[sidewinder]

Hey, that's cool.

I'm in Australia, and going to [www...] takes me to telstra.com's home page (my ISP).

[tombola]

Same here: [www...] redirects to my local ISP (I'm in Belgium).

[Leosghost]

I just get the "server not found" from the box like normal for a non existant page ...
running 98II in France thruogh Tiscali ...

Other ISPS?.....dont know

[py9jmas]

Your DNS resolver can be configured to append default domains to anything it's asked to resolve. If your in the domain example.edu and tried to resolve www, it would check www.example.edu first. If you tried to resolve www.micorsoft.com, it would try www.micorsoft.com.example.edu first.

I expect ISPs set the search to include their domain name, so www = www.yourisp.com. Which may then explicitly redirect you to www.yourisp.com. On Linux/*BSD, look in /etc/resolv.conf for search lines.
In Windows 2000, go to the command prompt and run `ipconfig /all' and look at DNS suffix search list.

[HughMungus]

Makes me wonder how many people open their browser and type in "www" or "internet" or even "take me to the internet" :D

[vkaryl]

Interesting. Know what it gave me when I experimented? Microsoft.com.... (As a second test, I copied n pasted the original www/****x.com into the addy bar - with the same result: Microsoft.com)

And I'm using FIREFOX. Hrmmmm.

[Zeolite]

By default, if you open a link in Firefox that isn't a URL, it will do a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search for that text. If you search on Google for "www", you'll see that the first result is microsoft.com.

[Leosghost]

So Bill did it huh ...M$=MY SYSTEM!
and www=We Won Worldwide!

[HughMungus]

If you search on Google for "www", you'll see that the first result is microsoft.com.

Pretty ironic considering what I've heard about Microsoft being late to the internet party...then again, the cool people always show up late to the party.