3 ms·
"The DNS was co-opted in this effort and OpenDNS tried to achieve this with a recursive resolver that performed NXDOMAIN redirection into a search engine, in a
by davidu 7y ago
"The DNS was co-opted in this effort and OpenDNS tried to achieve this with a recursive resolver that performed NXDOMAIN redirection into a search engine, in a reprise of Sitefinder. For a short period, OpenDNS also redirected the domain name www.google.com to a different search engine."
Well this is false, and misleading. The connection to Sidefinder is a red herring -- sitefinder was applied Internet-wide, OpenDNS was a choice. Saying OpenDNS redirected www.google.com isn't accurate either. There was a URL that was redirected for a portion of users for a very short period of time because Google installed a hijacked version of the Google toolbar, and once we did this, they reverted their erroneous behavior and we reverted ours and we wrote about it extensively (https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-page/ https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-...).
Geoff knows better, but is being lazy or sloppy while trying to provide a historical record. A shame, because it's a worthwhile topic to go over.
The real conclusion he fails to make is that between Android, Chrome, and Google Search, there is a total monopoly on navigation for the vast majority of the Internet. That's distressing, and until there is a major platform shift, it's hard to see that changing.
- thayne 7y ago> The real conclusion he fails to make is that between Android, Chrome, and Google Search, there is a total monopoly on navigation for the vast majority of the Internet. I thought that was his conclusion (basically).
- autoexec 7y ago> Well this is false, and misleading. The connection to Sidefinder is a red herring -- sitefinder was applied Internet-wide, OpenDNS was a choice. It don't think it's entire unfair to say it was reminiscent in concept though. In both cases where someone would expect NXDOMAIN they were served something else just so a company could make money. Users did have more choice in using OpenDNS, and this was something that caused people to switch away from them. Fair point on the google thing though. That should have been clarified.