Important Notice: We're experiencing email notification issues. If you've posted a question in the community forums recently, please check your profile manually for responses while we're working to fix this.

On Monday the 3rd of March, around 5pm UTC (9am PT) users may experience a brief period of downtime while one of our underlying services is under maintenance.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

When I type an address in the address bar it gets converted to searchguide.windstream.net even thoGoogle is my dflt srch engn & keyword.enabled=false

NJRidout
NJRidout
more options

There are 2 things here I don't understand. 1) My default search engine as shown in the Search bar is Google search, and yet, when I type a URL in the address bar, it gets converted to searchguide.windstream.net (which today is generating a URL which is too large -: 414 Request URL Too Large

2) I followed Help instructions and typed about:config in the address bar and reset keyword.enabled to "false" but it appeared to have no effect.

If I want to search I can use Google or another search engine; if I type a URL I want it to be taken as I typed it.

Thanks.

PS: I am currently at my dad's house using his wifi which is windstream. Other than his wifi / router I have nothing to do with windstream and certainly never asked them to be my search engine

There are 2 things here I don't understand. 1) My default search engine as shown in the Search bar is Google search, and yet, when I type a URL in the address bar, it gets converted to searchguide.windstream.net (which today is generating a URL which is too large -: 414 Request URL Too Large 2) I followed Help instructions and typed about:config in the address bar and reset keyword.enabled to "false" but it appeared to have no effect. If I want to search I can use Google or another search engine; if I type a URL I want it to be taken as I typed it. Thanks. PS: I am currently at my dad's house using his wifi which is windstream. Other than his wifi / router I have nothing to do with windstream and certainly never asked them to be my search engine

All Replies (1)

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
more options

I suppose that is a "service" provided by Windstream for their users. Typically an "opt out" can be done with the ISP, but I can't find any current information for Windstream and don't want to give you old information from 6 to 7 years ago that may not be applicable 'today'.

DNS server hijacking started becoming a problem back in 2008, when many Broadband Service Providers started doing that for "incomplete searches" or domain names that couldn't be resolved.

Here's a couple of 'generic' articles, which might be helpful for you. https://hackercodex.com/guide/how-to-stop-isp-dns-server-hijacking/ https://deekayen.net/windstream-redirecting-failed-website-requests