A few months ago I used Time Warner / Road Runner as my ISP here in San Diego and one day I typed in a web address that didn’t exist. Normally, the internet and my browser work well together by simply giving me some kind of error page. On that fatal day, instead, my browser redirected me to some crappy hijacked ad-filled interception page.
I did find a way to fix it, and shared that information with you. You were thankful, so I’m happy to share some more info, but this time from Cox.
When we came back from France, we moved to downtown San Diego and of course the first thing I did was get internet. It’s my life-blood. So, we got Cox cable this time because that’s who serves our area.
Today, I ran into the same issue that we saw before. Cox did what’s called a DNS hijack. They say they do this because it’s better for their customers to find what they are looking for (which they really aren’t), but if they were honest and transparent they’d really tell us it’s a way to make a few more bucks. All the “search results” are just sponsored ads from one of the major ad networks. And, as I’m not really opposed to them trying to make extra money, it doesn’t provide value to the end consumer, so it’s pretty slimy. Oh, and it breaks the way the internet was supposed to work.
Now, all that to say, Cox does still give us a DNS setting that we can use to get back to normal. Straight from their support website, here’s how you can “fix” the problem:
How to Turn off Cox’s 404 (DNS) Hijacking
From the Start menu, click Control Panel.
In Category View, click Network and Internet Connections.
Click Network Connections.
From the Network Connections window, right-click Local Area Connection and select Properties.
From the General tab, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), then click Properties.
- From the General tab, click Use the following DNS server addresses.
- Enter the following Preferred and Alternate DNS Server Addresses in order:
- 68.105.28.13
- 68.105.29.13
- Click OK.
Click Close to close the Local Area Connection Properties window.
All steps complete.
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