When you type in a domain name that doesn’t exist, your result is typically a blank browser window with an error message. Comcast thinks that’s silly, so today, in Seattle, Portland, and other test markets, they’re introducing Domain Helper, a little search page that replaces the default “nxdomain” error.

Problem: This is DNS redirection, a practice that not only forces advertisements onto typo-writers but can also wreak havoc with non-browser traffic. I could go into detail about potential issues with things like e-mail and FTP use, but just trust this all-caps nerd:

NOW EVERY DOMAIN NAME IS VALID from a DNS lookup standpoint. THIS SHOULD NOT BE.

Comcast allows its customers to opt out of the “service,” which you should. But Comcast will poorly inform its less savvy customers, and they, by default, will be stuck with Comcast-monopolized ads at best and Internet traffic issues at worst. In defense, Comcast’s new PR beacon ComcastBonnie states that competitors like Cox and Time Warner Cable employ their own DNS redirection services. Don’t let such schoolyard rationalizations fly; let Comcast know you think this move stinks.

41 replies on “No Thanks, Comcast”

  1. Anyone stupid enough to have a cable company as an ISP deserves what they get.

    Clearwire launches true wimax in seattle this year.

  4. Def OpenDNS.

    I remember Network Solutions tried the same thing a few years ago. The early Net Neutrality community went ballistic and they backed off. Hopefully Comcast will too.

  5. @3: I just logged into it just fine. It could be that they’re blocking access from non-Comcast servers, since you have to provide your home router’s MAC address to use the site.

  6. worked okay for me… except the form forces you to type each two-character pair in a separate field and they don’t jump to the next field for you. Of course, you also have to dig out the back of your modem to find the MAC address…

  7. @5, that’s probably it; I’m at work. Fucking bastards. The funniest thing is, it’s going to blow up their own spam filters.

    I suggest a pitched battle between IT and Marketing at Comcast. Marketing gets to use weighted handbags; IT gets to use mortar launchers, flamethrowers, and machine guns.

  10. It makes me giggle that you think I’m a PR beacon 🙂 If anything, I’m Customer service. I just try and put out as much info as I can to keep everyone in the loop. Was the poster in the chat earlier that I hosted with our Manager of DNS Engineering? He helped clarify some stuff.

    Rock on, Internets… Rock on.

  14. i was using opendns to replace qwest dsl’s slow dns, but it made youtube unusable due to some routing weirdness. wonder if they fixed that…

  15. True wimax is a marketing term for 4G wireless that will allow smug clearwire users to have transfer rates that finally approximate those of us who use lower transfer fiber optic service and therefore not feel like such suckers. The hilarious part is that Clearwire is now a Sprint/Nextel venture with significant ownership stakes by…Comcast and Time/Warner. I expect Clear to develop a similar DNS redirection at some point.

  16. “Anyone stupid enough to have a cable company as an ISP deserves what they get.”

    I would love to have something other than a cable company. We can’t get DSL at our house (yes, right here within sight of downtown Seattle, on part of Beacon Hill), and Clearwire is too slow.

    I’d be happy if we could even get Comcast. We are stuck with Broadstripe, one of the worst ISPs in existence. Comcast would be a step up, though ideally I’d prefer not to use a cable company.

    (FWIW — we used to have DSL, then Qwest changed the configuration somehow so it no longer works because we are “too far from the CO”.)

  17. I’m a little unclear why everyone is advocating OpenDNS to get around Comcast’s DNS redirection, since OpenDNS uses… DNS redirection. The only difference is that in that case you’ve actually OPTED to have them do it, and you can’t ask them politely to turn it off.

    New boss, same as the old boss.

  18. Sorry, can someone explain how this is going to affect me? Why will this cause “traffic issues?” What does that mean to me? Will I only see an issue if I type in an address incorrectly? I can generally pick up on tech explanations, but I am a liberal arts nerd, and therefore have no techie background.

  21. @18: Basically, whenever you type in an internet address into a networking application (web browser, e-mail, instant messaging, traceroute), the application sends that address to a computer that your ISP runs called a domain name server (DNS). If the DNS finds that name, it returns the corresponding numeric IP address back to your application.

    If the name is not found, on the other hand, the DNS is supposed to tell you that in as few bytes as possible. What Comcast, and basically most ISPs in the world now, is doing is instead of sending you a simple “not found” message, it sends you to a complicated, unnecessary web site that says “that address wasn’t found — try this!”

    So, yes, if you’re just using a web browser, that’s somewhere between mildly annoying and kind of helpful. Since this redirection service was, for all intents and purposes, designed for web browsers.

    If you’re using anything else that sends out a DNS request, though, you can get into trouble. Even something as common as e-mail could be thwarted by this. A bogus domain name could get redirected to the ISP’s “helper” server, and take longer to bounce back as undeliverable.

    Frankly, I think most of the problems would be experienced by end-users as unnoticeable delays. But, if I’m gravely wrong about that, someone will let me know.

  22. @21 To be fair, though, this is only going to cause real bad problems in edge conditions. The average user isn’t going to notice a giant leap in the time it takes their email client to time out. I’m not saying I’m a fan of this, but I think there’s a difference between “This totally fucks the Internet!”, which is what some people seem to be saying, and “Dick move, Comcast!” (And it totally IS a dick move.)

    Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that when I try to connect to http://badurlwooooyeah.com I get their new page, but when I try to ping it no IP address resolves. Maybe they’re doing something more clever than we’re giving them credit for?

  23. OpenDNS also redirects to advertisements, unless you opt-out. I’ve successfully used Verizon/GTE 4.2.2.[1-6] for years instead of Comcast’s crappy DNS.

  24. @21. That makes sense. Thank you. Sounds like a “dick move,” in a very minor way, on Comcast’s part, but not something that angers me enough to do anything about it.

  25. @22: Yeah, that’s basically what I was trying to say. “Dick move,” but not “way to destroy the internet, Comcast!”

    And as much as the purist in me doesn’t want shit like this, I still realize that Comcast is actually like one of the last ISPs to implement something like this. So, if I were making decisions for them on behalf of their shareholders, I would pretty much be fired for not taking advantage of this potential advertising revenue.

    It’s another day in the Long September. The time has long since passed when networking providers were mainly focused on the demands of those of us who actually know or care how networking works.

  27. As to ping being turned off, Qwest’s redirection provides an IP address for the URL being pinged, but the URL does not return the pings, and I get 100% packet loss.,

    ICMP echoes (pings) are easy to turn off (like Fnarf said) without really affecting the functionality of any other services at that address.

  28. For those folks outside the internet industry, here is a new vocabular term: “domain match”

    The most expensive, most effective advertising on the web is “search match”. That’s what happens when you go to Google or Yahoo, type a search term, and get sponsored links back.

    The less effective, cheap traffic is “content match”. This is banners and graphical ads that appear on, for example, your blog which are supposed to be matched to the content. You read an article on an air crash, and see an ad for discount tickets.

    “Domain Match” are the ads that appear on bullshit web sites. You type “mespice.com” into your browser and land on a bullshit site that somebody slapped together to catch traffic from typos.

    OK– here is a dirty secret. Domain match traffic is billed to the advertiser as if it were search match. Because you typed in a phrase you were looking for, right? So all these advertisers are paying for links that they thought were appearing on Google, Yahoo, etc. But really they were appearing on craptastic bullshit sites that were registered to cash in on typos.

    Comcast is using their position– between you and the web– to rip off advertisers, dump unwanted content on your eyeball, and collect top dollar.

    Every link that Comcast renders up for you was paid for by an advertiser who has no idea that you were looking for something else.

  30. Hilarious as the cable modem fan bois and trolls come to their Vulcan Masters defense!

    Figure it out. Cable providers don’t want you to watch free video on your computer…they want you to pay them for cable.

    Figure it out. Digital TV is horrible and choppy. They don’t want you to have free tv any more.

    Figure it out. Wimax has the power to take over and deliver cheap mobile IP for phone, data, video. Obviously 3G apparitchniks don’t want you to have that.

  31. “I just try and put out as much info as I can to keep everyone in the loop.”

    It doesn’t make such a stupid corporate decision any easier to swallow. In fact, it’s worse, because no matter how much we hate it, you’re going to give us “information” and deploy your ad-laden “solution” that nobody asked for anyway.

  33. If you’re opting out through their website and your cable modem is in the other room or something, you can probably just hit up 192.168.100.1 and click on “Addresses” at the top.

    “HFC MAC Address” is the one you want.

  35. Intelligent commentary on this here: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comca…

    Getting rid of DNS redirect is actually pretty easy.

    1) You can use the opt out procedure that Comcast supplies (in that link that’s on the DNS redirect page)

    2) You can manually set your DNS server to something else like OpenDNS or Level3 (4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.4 works well). Just configure it in your router or (if your directly connecting a computer to your modem) in your computer’s TCP/IP settings.

    or 3) If you really like using Comcast DNS (no idea why that might be but whatever) and you’ve statically assigned your DNS servers, then you’re automatically opted out. They’re only putting this on new DNS servers. Here’s a few of the old (opted out) ones: 68.87.85.98, 68.87.66.196, 68.87.69.146

    FWIW, Comcast is trying to work on improving industry standards for DNS redirection through a Best Practices Document draft submitted to the IETF. Geeks may be interested to know that one of the authors is interacting with the nerd community here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r2267919…

  36. Oh and, @30, @1 and others, you know that Clearwire is actually jointly funded by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Sprint (as well as Google and Intel), right? You know that Comcast has people on the board of Clearwire, right? You know that Comcast’s shiny new High Speed 2Go is rebranded Clearwire Wimax, right?

    In other words, Clearwire is run by the same folks who consistently come in at the bottom of the customer service ratings for both cable and mobile phone service. But never mind that…it’s gonna be da BOMB! LOL

  38. lots of bad info in these comments

    opting out and using comcast’s dns is the best. big websites that are distributed all over the world through things like akami will respond faster when you use comcast’s dns servers because they point you to a close copy of the webpage.

    i wish it was happening on my comcast line so i could probe into how it actually works since i question its ability to interfere with things like email and ftp.

    not that this idea doesn’t blow in general.

  40. Well I only wish it was easy to opt-out of this Comcast “Domain Helper” service, I have been trying for four hours, three phone calls, and two escalation complaints to do exactly that.

    Comcast says I can’t opt out and they can’t remove the Domain Helper, because I am not subscribed. They say I must have accidentally downloaded something on my computer if I am getting weird error screens. Since I am looking at their Domain Helper screen and it says Comcast Domain Helper, telling me I can’t be seeing what I am seeing is ludicrous!

    I am trying to debug something and I need to see the actual error messages to find the problem point and fix it. Comcast’s redirect is preventing me from having access to the information I need to fix a problem! As a business customer, I really do not appreciate being put on a service like this without being asked. I especially don’t appreciate that I now have to have a technician out to try and figure out how to get rid of this service costing me even more lost business time.

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