Have you seen your computer redirect to search3.comcast.com or search5.comcast.com ? Don’t worry, you do not have a virus. Your web traffic is being filtered. Kind of like if your phone misdials a number, you get a mcdonalds commercial or pepsi commercial. Not cool, right? Read below if you want a better understanding of what that means. A cool fix of the issue is there. If you don’t want to read all of that, scroll to the bottom and look for the bold text “Simplest way I know“. That’s the way for someone looking for the quick fix.
If you do not know by now, Comcast is doing something I can describe as being the same thing they were told not to do. But not calling it what they said they would. They are throttling bandwidth and monopolizing from more than one direction. How?
Ok for starts they are filtering and snooping your internet traffic. You can see proof of this activity if you use Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and type in a link that does not work. Now this in no way says that Internet Explorer is any safer than Firefox, in fact it says internet explorer does the same thing but by the works of Microsoft Bing.
If you type a link that should land you to an error/404 page while using Firefox, it takes you to “http://search3.comcast.com” . Now you see I will not actually link that page because the whole reason they send you there is because they actually make money from yahoo search and the advertisements on that page. Of course they affiliate with Yahoo, they tried to use Google as an example to why they should collect money from website owners because of the traffic they send them.
This move they are making is taking money from the pockets of the Firefox developers. The people at Firefox built their browser and hard coded the search to work with their affiliate program with Google, Firefox team did leave you/us the option to change to what ever search engine we want. Most of us just left it to the default page. This of course left motivation and or funding to the Mozilla group so they can keep developing and reaching more people with their creative works. The creative works of a group who is not a corporation with a desire to force us into a specified direction, to better highlight other software bundled with it, like an operating system that came forcefully attached to a crappy browser, (windows? mac? lol you figure it out) but no it was a method of freedom. Firefox was the step away from CompuServe and AOL forced browser and constant blast of advertisements. but now someone has their hooks into the money of Firefox. I have the fix
How to fix this issue is go to MVP’s HOSTS site, download the zip file to your desk top and extract all files in that zip straight to your desktop. Right click the file labeled “hosts” the one with no extension and select “open with” and find your notepad.exe file and open with that.
Scroll down till you see the list of website addresses and the ip address of “127.0.0.1” .
My trick is to make this my top line
127.0.0.1 search3.comcast.com
127.0.0.1 search5.comcast.com
This now ensures that my computer will never go to them again.
It however does not put any money back into the hands of the firefox team, but it does not profit a company who is making money off of me because I pay my bills on time, now they also want to make money off of my searches while some other team created the web browser I am using. I have a fear they will do the same that aol did with netscape, buy it up and crud it out till no one uses it anymore, causing the extinction of one last free field for us to graze in.
Another alternative is to leave Comcast all together. I am not against that really. but of course Comcast has taken every cable provider in the area I live and bought up all of their business. Leaving me no choice but to use them if I use cable. Dsl hub is pretty close, I am sure I can pay the same price for dsl and get cheaper cable with more channle and not be bothered by Comcast. but really, what good would I be in the act of toppling the monopoly of comunistcast ?
Maybe I am the only person who hears Comcast complain about increased internet use, every time they increase their internet user count by buying out another company (and all of their equipment). I mean really , if you are losing money guys, stop buying crap and just ride your profits for a while, let the customers be comfortable, you are scaring us.
but on another note, as an extra twist of the knife, since Comcast is using Yahoo for their search engine affiliate :-)
put this in your hosts file
yahoo.com search3.comcast.com
and then close it, select “save” don’t rename anything.. now from the files you saved to your desktop
locate the one labeled “hosts.bat” double click it. you will see a blue box, hit your space bar one time and you are done.
Now close all browsers and re-open them
now go to
sdhfajdhfasjdkf.com
If it takes you to “http://search3.comcast.com/?cat=dnsr&con=ds&url=www.sdhfajdhfasjdkf.com”
Then something has gone wrong, read again, try again.
There is always open dns, this of course really puts you in the same place but slower internet and someone else is filtering your net usage.
and http://www.webmasterworld.com/firefox_browser/3966582.htm
you can always drop Firefox and go for another browser of the same engine.
K-Meleon browser
It won’t fix your issue but you won’t see comcast filtering your traffic.
Simplest way I know is make your web browser go to yahoo any time some one types in the “search3.comcast.com” term by navigating to this folder with notepad (opened in administrator mode) “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc”
open the file labeled “Hosts” by using notepad in administrator mode.
That will highlight everything in that file.
Now copy this line and add it under everything you see in that hosts file I showed you how to get to.
72.30.2.43 search3.comcast.com
72.30.2.43 search5.comcast.com
Then close all of your browsers and re-open them. and try to go to this web site “search3.comcast.com” or “search5.comcast.com”
instead you will be redirected to yahoo. there . you keep comcast from further profiting on internet usage you already pay for.
Alternatively you can use a different DNS than the one that comcast provides. and this allows you to not worry about most of the comcast $$ making pages you will land on… because you are no longer 100% in their network. It allows you to use the service of the people that comcast pays to bring the internet to your area.
Primary DNS Server : 4.2.2.2
http://www.grc.com/dns/benchma
because it works.
crap loads faster and I don’t get that stupid page from comcast when I land on a link.