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January 02, 2008

Unwanted DNS assistance

Last night I noticed that Verizon (provider of our up-to-now awesomely-praised FiOS service) has foisted upon us a crappy "DNS assistance" thing...the gist being that should we enter an incorrect URL (though, this also occurs if one omits things like "www") into a browser, we are no longer greeted with a simple "page not found," but instead are met by some Verizon page full of suggested sites, ads, and branding.  Freedom To Tinker has a good write-up of the...new feature.  There's more, and more...much more.

I am pretty sure I hate it, and I certainly know I don't want it.

Allegedly, one can "opt out" of the "service," but I can't make heads or tails of the 16-step process I need to undertake in order to do so.  In fact, I can't even get past step 3 (or, sub-step 3 of step 1)...in order to note the DNS addresses, i'm told to "Select Status from the main menu."  Alas, there is no link anywhere to be found called "status."  I am completely dumbfounded by the fact that I have to wade through this...garbage...in order for my internet to act the way it did a few months ago (but maybe I am secretly happy to have to "change octets" [sub-step 9 of step 2]).

Of course, if I were a smarter or more patient man, I would be able to find this information on my own...but navigating my gateway settings site is an exercise in crapfoolery of its own.

Boo.

Clampants | January 2, 2008 01:10 PM