If you knew me well, you would know that I hate big companies like Comcast and AT&T taking too much control over their products and services. It’s just so hard to find a way to connect to the internet freely. Whether it be AT&T’s dictation over what you can and cannot do with your “unlimited” data plan, or Comcast give you an email account when all you want is a fast internet connection, I am not pleased. Not one bit!

Anyway, it looks like Comcast has chosen to do something even more stupid than ever: DNS Redirection. Basically, when you type in a URL that doesn’t exist, the display a ad-supported search page instead of letting your browser return an error page.

Comcast Search Page

This is instead of returning an error page like Safari (or any other browser) would normally do if it couldn’t find a server to match the domain.

Standard Safari Error

Sure, you might think that this isn’t a big deal. It’s not like your missing out on anything. A non-existent URL is a non-existent URL, it doesn’t matter what you are shown. While that might be true, it’s not a good thing in the bigger picture. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to go on the internet without having to worry about anything like who my service provider is. I also want the internet to be consistent, regardless of what service provider you have.

This is exactly why I don’t think Comcast shouldn’t do anything except give you internet. That is their job. They make their money by charging you a monthly service fee. Their relationship with you should end there. You don’t need them to provide you email because you can get free email very easily, anywhere. And so you don’t need them to provide you this search feature because, if you wanted it, you could set it up within your browser. Bottom line, they shouldn’t tamper with the internet before it gets to your computer.

And yes, they do let you opt-out of this new service, but they don’t make it that easy. You are required to provide the MAC address of your router, a task that should never have to be done by someone who just wants to surf the web.

I just hope that someday, the internet is as free as electricity and isn’t controlled by corporations like Comcast or AT&T. Imagine if your electricity provider decided to start cutting your electricity off if they think you have been using to much.

Update: Per @Static_Safe’s suggestion, I am not testing out OpenDNS, a service that let’s you use different (and arguably faster) DNS servers than those provided by Comcast. The service also provides you greater control over things like spelling corrector and error pages. You can enable a similar error page like the one Comcast provides and even upload your own logo. You can also disable the error search pages in a much easier way than with Comcast. It’s work a try for anyone who doesn’t want to give their ISP so much control. I will let you know what I think after I test it out for a while.