Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
TwoTankAmin
Enthusiast - Level 3

For the past 14+ months as a Verizon triple play customer if I mistyped a URL into the addy bar of my Firefox browser ( I take IE off my system and will not use it), I would end up on the Google search site as a helpful place. I only use Google for searches and have removed the search engines in Firefox for the other sites like Yahoo, Bing, etc. Therefore there is no way my browser will end me at any of the other search sites unless I type in the addy myself. I do not wish to waste my time on those sites.

Today I was typing in an addy and I mistyped it. When I hit enter to my dismay I ended up on Yahoo. I do not understand why or how this can happen except that it is Verizon forcing me there.

I went into a live chat with a Verizon support person who was so clueless I finally terminated the session. He kept insisting it was on my end when I knew this to be impossible due to my browser configuration.

My question is how to prevent Verizon from directing me to Yahoo where I do not wish to be. If there is nothing Verizon can suggest then I will simply download a site blocking addon which will prevent my machine from landing on any yahoo site ever.

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
LawrenceC
Moderator Emeritus

Hi TwoTankAmin,

As Hubrisnxs posted earlier, you can opt out of DNS Assistance and have your mistyped web addresses direct to an error page instead of a Yahoo! search page. 

The links to opt out can be found here:

Would you like to opt out of this service?

View solution in original post

Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
Hubrisnxs
Legend

Add Google as Your Search Provider in Internet Explorer 9

 
  Try the above steps. 

@TwoTankAmin wrote:

For the past 14+ months as a Verizon triple play customer if I mistyped a URL into the addy bar of my Firefox browser ( I take IE off my system and will not use it), I would end up on the Google search site as a helpful place. I only use Google for searches and have removed the search engines in Firefox for the other sites like Yahoo, Bing, etc. Therefore there is no way my browser will end me at any of the other search sites unless I type in the addy myself. I do not wish to waste my time on those sites.

Today I was typing in an addy and I mistyped it. When I hit enter to my dismay I ended up on Yahoo. I do not understand why or how this can happen except that it is Verizon forcing me there.

I went into a live chat with a Verizon support person who was so clueless I finally terminated the session. He kept insisting it was on my end when I knew this to be impossible due to my browser configuration.

My question is how to prevent Verizon from directing me to Yahoo where I do not wish to be. If there is nothing Verizon can suggest then I will simply download a site blocking addon which will prevent my machine from landing on any yahoo site ever.


If that is not the issue, then this might be.
 
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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
22Becca22
Contributor - Level 3

@TwoTankAmin wrote:

For the past 14+ months as a Verizon triple play customer if I mistyped a URL into the addy bar of my Firefox browser ( I take IE off my system and will not use it), I would end up on the Google search site as a helpful place. I only use Google for searches and have removed the search engines in Firefox for the other sites like Yahoo, Bing, etc. Therefore there is no way my browser will end me at any of the other search sites unless I type in the addy myself. I do not wish to waste my time on those sites.

Today I was typing in an addy and I mistyped it. When I hit enter to my dismay I ended up on Yahoo. I do not understand why or how this can happen except that it is Verizon forcing me there.

I went into a live chat with a Verizon support person who was so clueless I finally terminated the session. He kept insisting it was on my end when I knew this to be impossible due to my browser configuration.

My question is how to prevent Verizon from directing me to Yahoo where I do not wish to be. If there is nothing Verizon can suggest then I will simply download a site blocking addon which will prevent my machine from landing on any yahoo site ever.


Hello,

Likely you may have used an add-on or extension that changed your default search engine to yahoo on mistyped URLs.

Here is the Mozila Support article for Firefox web searches.  Try following the steps mentioned in the article, particularly the 'Changing the Internet Keyword service' section.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-web-address-bar

Also, here's another article that maybe of note:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/670258

Good luck and let us know if any of these sites help with your issue!

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
afletcher9
Newbie

I too, would like to know why I'm being forced to use Yahoo search. If I want to use Yahoo, I'm quite capable of doing so myself.

This is happening with both Firefox and Chrome. I deleted Yahoo as even a choice for search engine.

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

Is Yahoo what Verizon's DNS server now defaults to if you give it a bad url?

Switch DNS servers.  Popular ones include Google Public DNS and OPENDNS You can also change the Verizon DNS server from xxx.xxx.xxx.12 to xxx.xxx.xxx.14.  And it will stop doing that.

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

I don't see any of the behavior described in this thread.

In Firefox 33, if I enter a bad URL it just pops up a screen:

image

In addition, I have the option to set whatever search engine I want to use:

image

image

Behavior and settings available are similiar with IE 11.  I don't see any evidence that Verizon is forcing any search engine to be used.

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
TwoTankAmin
Enthusiast - Level 3

So here it is over 2 years later. IE had been disabled on my boc since version 6. I jicked Forefox to the curb about a year ago due to Autsralis and Mozillias decisions to go with the crowd and not stay committed to its original goals. I am now a pale moon user.

Anf guess what. this same things still happens. I tried changing the ketword setting in Pale Moon and it had no effect.

Clearly Verizon is responsible for doing this.

Just as an FYI- on firefox I had already deleted all serch engines besides google. In Pale Moon I have Google and DuckDuckGo and all other engines are deleted.

And still Verizon shoots me over to Yahoo- all I do is close the Page I do not use Yahoo or Bing for searching and would rather not have that forced on me by Verizon.

I know it is verizon because when I intentionally mistype a URL, specifically I change fishforums.net (a valid site) to fishforams.com in the addy bar and here is the URL to which I am sent

http://searchassist.verizon.com/main?InterceptSource=0&ClientLocation=us&ParticipantID=euekiz39ksg8n...

I tried to stop this invasive behavior by blocking shearchasisst.verizon.com and shearchasisst.verizon.com" and it made no difference.

One more reason why nobody in their right mind should trust Verizon when it come to respecting their user's privacy or choices on the net.

There is only one reason we use Verizon- because we have a backup generator, electrical outages do not cause us to lose phone/TV/internet. The Verizon wires have to be down for that to happen.

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Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
LawrenceC
Moderator Emeritus

Hi TwoTankAmin,

As Hubrisnxs posted earlier, you can opt out of DNS Assistance and have your mistyped web addresses direct to an error page instead of a Yahoo! search page. 

The links to opt out can be found here:

Would you like to opt out of this service?

Re: Why is Verizon forcing me to use Yahoo Search? You have no right.
ElizabethS
Moderator Emeritus

As this thread is now over two years old, it will be locked in order to keep discussions current. If you have the same or a similar question/issue we invite you to start a new thread on the topic.

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