Prevent OpenDNS From Redirecting Google Searches - Fix for Firefox & IE Address Bar
Like everyone else, I search the web from the browser address bar and have set Google as the default search engine in both Firefox and IE. I also use OpenDNS for reasons explained here - Why You Need OpenDNS ?
Sounds like a perfect combination but a side effect of using OpenDNS is that you can no longer search Google from Firefox location bar or the address bar of Internet Explorer.
That’s because all search requests from the browser address bar, originally meant for Google, are always redirected to OpenDNS Guide.
This can be a bit frustrating for Google users because Yahoo! (that feeds OpenDNS search) is definitely not the best search engine around.
If you like to disable OpenDNS Guide search without removing the OpenDNS DNS entries from your computer or router, just follow these simple steps:
Use Google Search with OpenDNS in Firefox Location Bar
Type about:config in the address bar and press enter. If you are on Firefox 3, click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”. Now type keyword.url in the Filter field and set the value as:
http://www.google.com/search?q=
If you want Firefox to do a “I am Feeling Lucky” style Google search, use this value for keyword.URL:
http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=
Also make sure that the value of keyword.enabled is set to TRUE. That’s it - now any query you type in the Firefox Address bar will go to Google, not OpenDNS guide.
Related: Google Search and Firefox location bar
OpenDNS and Internet Explorer Address Bar
Open the registry editor (Start -> Run -> regedit) and navigate to the following key in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes
If Windows Live Search is your default search engine in Internet Explorer 7, open {0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A} and set the value of URL as
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q={searchTerms}
In case of Google, open the corresponding key and set the value of URL as
http://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}
Technicals: I think OpenDNS redirects Google Searches to OpenDNS Guide if the “source” parameter is present in the search URL. Remove that from the address and OpenDNS would stop redirecting Google searches.
An alternative could be OpenDNS Shortcuts but the above modification are required when you have a dynamic IP address and are not logged into the OpenDNS system.
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What about for firefox searches that don’t have any keyword?
(I’m saving myself from having to type “g [space]“…
Now that I’m on OpenDNS,
when I’m in the main location bar and put in my search words without any prefixes, OpenDNS hijacks it.
Before I used OpenDNS, putting search words in Fx’s location bar would go to Google’s search.
Although I also am a big fan of OpenDNS, I have had problems too. Namely, for a while all of my google search results inexplicably changed from http://www.google.com/... to http://www.l.google.com/... This was annoying (to say the least) and broke many of my favorite Firefox extensions.
After doing some research online (and finding various reasons suggested) I simply contacted OpenDNS on their support page and within a couple of days they responded, saying that is was fixed, and apologizing for the issue and the delayed response.
…isn’t that part of growing up - learning patience and forgiveness? I forgive you, OpenDNS, and you’re still welcome over for dinner anytime!
I also use OpenDNS. I wonder how much OpenDNS depends on the advertiser revenue from the ads to support the service? I guess it doesn’t both me as much since I typically don’t search from the address bar.
yeah it works i was using opendns but its search results ware annoying now i am happy
How convenient Google searches are redirected to OpenDNS Guide searches instead. This is by design.
OpenDNS also breaks Firefox extensions
that enable search from the context menu.
I am not about to sacrifice these conveniences.
These a just a few reasons
why I do not need OpenDNS.
That may be helpful (I’d prefer using Firefox’s keyword system to initiate location-bar searches), but by eliminating the redirect you’re also eliminating OpenDNS’s revenue stream, which of course is what pays for their free-to-us (and excellent) service.
Aha… I never knew this… I guess that’s because I never search from the address bar…
I am used to “Ctrl+E”-ing and typing what I need to search for and pressing Enter. (Ctrl+E takes you to the Browser Search Box)
“Open”DNS seems to be aggressively persuing whatever revenue stream they are finding by hijacking my browser bar and redirecting to their “Open”guide. That’s with Typo Correction turned OFF. I switched to OpenDNS to get away from Verizon hijacking (instigated in Los Angeles I think mid 2007). Can anyone recommend another DNS service that will leave my error traffic alone?
This doesn’t work for me. Using OpenDNS; have removed the ’source’ parameter and tried a few different URLs to Google search. They all still redirect to the guide. Goddamnit. Any other ideas?
It doesn’t work for me either, has OpenDNS changed something, or am I missing something ?
It’s not working for me either; I think OpenDNS did change something.
Are they seriously hijacking Google searches like this? That’s unacceptable.
To the above posters, it does work!
Worked beautifully on Firefox 3 Beta 5 on Ubuntu 8.04 Beta (I like betas okay!)
Now I don’t need to prepend g to do my searches in the address bar.
Actually, my apologies to the above. This does work, but you must paste this as the string for the keyword
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s
I copied it from my own keyword search rather than the blog itself (you for example could right click on the google search box and choose add key word (mine was the letter g).
I had been using it because as was said, the opendns search is worse, if I ended up there it was accidental.
Okay I figured it out at last. The post is correct. But, if you type one search term, you end up at the opendns guide. if you have a sace in there, goes straight to google
for example type
bleh
or
blah blah
The latter will go to google… Sigh…
This one works for me (I just removed the UTF-8 part from the query):
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
I also think that hijacking queries is quite discusting. Is there any OpenDNS alternative out there ???
I just used the instructions above, abd it worked perfectly!
I don’t have anything against OpenDNS , except for one small detail. My address bar search was hijacked and changed to OpenDNS. I don’t take too kindly to that. I’ve read that the owner says that Google is not the best search engine out there, but at least I picked them by choice! No OpenDNS!!!!!