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Redirector Browser Extension Takes You Where You Want to Go

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AT&T just installed fiber to my house. It’s fast. I get a steady 949 Mbps up and down. I had no complaints about the 160 Mbps/14 Mbps I was getting from Cox, but my inner geek couldn’t say no to faster-for-the-same-price.

attdnshijackThe install was pretty smooth, but during the bumps, I would type nonsense URLs in to see if things were working. Most of the domains actually existed, but when I hit something that wasn’t live, I got the AT&T-branded page telling me the page I’m looking for isn’t available. Well, it said that somewhere within the mess of ads. Call it what you will, it’s DNS hijacking. Amazingly, AT&T allows users to opt-out of “this service”. But some ISPs don’t.

End ISP DNS Hijacking

Before I noticed that opt-out, I took a minute to update my Redirector settings appropriately. No more AT&T DNS hijacking. (I’d previously used it to prevent Cox from hijacking my DNS).

It works in FireFox, Chrome, and Opera, and Redirector is good for more than stopping DNS hijacking. It’s a versatile browser usability enhancer.

Use Redirector to Help Your Favorite Charity

I don’t have a car, and I loathe shopping, so I regularly shop with Amazon for things I can’t get by foot or on my bike. I made a valiant effort to remember to use Amazon’s Smile program special URLs to help my favorite charity (Death With Dignity National Centers,) but I’d usually forget. The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to the charitable organization of your choice.

I didn’t want to leave those easy donations on the table, so I searched for something that could remember for me. Enter Redirector. Now, every time I click an amazon link, or type amazon.com into my browser, I’m taken to the smile.amazon.com version of that page, instead.

I’ve uploaded an image of my Redirector settings at the bottom of this post in case you too want to more frequently, passively donate to your fave cause, or if you want to stop your ISP from hijacking your DNS. It’s easy. For the latter, you can use the same DNS hijacking forwarding URL I use, or copy the PHP snippet from that page.

<?php
if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {
 echo $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
} 
?>

…Not that you need the php on the page you load instead of your ISP’s branded page, but it helps to be able to see a printout of the potentially improperly typed URL. e.g. below.

icurdDNSerror

Above: This is the plain-Jane message I get when I type in a bad URL, e.g. doesthisdomainexist.com

 

Redirector settings below. Click for larger image.

 

redirector

Let me know if you have problems. I’ll add more detail to this post as needed.

 

Dan Dreifort consults on UX and SEO.  I also make music, and enjoy biking and walking around San Diego, when I’m not broken.

 


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