New Feature in iBurst (iBurst Browser Hijacking & more)

tco21 said:
That's not even remotely close to the issue on hand. If you want to discuss that, there are plenty of other threads for it.
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My apologies. The issue at hand is iBurst's browser hijacking. Which, by the way, you can resolve 100% by installing my new script. It loads before you reach iBurst's page, and you can decide if you want to go there or if you want to stay where you are. You're welcome :D
 
Basjohn said:
Please stop using "hijacking" like it's going out of style, they're NOT hijacking they're redirecting. Not arguing over whether it's nice or not....just Village hysteria FTL.
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I'm afraid it is browser hijacking. Browswer hijacking is when your browser goes to a site that is not of your choosing.

Browser Hijacking: A browser hijacking occurs when a browser gets set to a website which is not the user's choosing. Sometimes information gets rerouted to another site without the user's knowledge and makes the Internet connection run slower. Hijacks can change a user's homepage

http://www.cliftonpark.org/articles/content.asp?MemberID=3798

Maybe I can explain this by means of an analogy. Imagine that you are in Cape Town. You get in your car and you start driving to Durban. Only, your car starts driving on its own, the doors lock and you can't get out. When your car finally stops, you find yourself in Buluwayo. Your car followed the protocol the entire way, namely it stopped at all the red lights, gave the correct indications and kept within the speed limit. The only downside is you are now in Buluwayo instead of in Durban.

Would you be happy if your car did this? If not, why are you grateful when your browser does essentially the same thing? More than this, what if you took your car to the manufacturer to file a complaint and they tell you that they are very sorry, that's a user feature that the people from Zimbabwe requested. They didn't install anything on your car, or in your garage, it's a feature that they control from the manufacturer's head office in Port Elizabeth with a magic 8 ball and one $#@#$ magnet in Buluwayo.

Is your car being hijacked or is it being redirected? Do the semantics really matter or do you think it is acceptable for your car to drive somewhere you did not wish to go all by itself?

Frankly, I don't care what you want to call it but I will not like a car with a mind of its own. Likewise, I do not like my browser being redirected without my choosing.

This issue seems to be enjoying the attention it deserves so hopefully it will be resolved before next month. In the meanwhile I'm cashing in on people who are paying me to help them prevent this from happening to them. Thank you, iBurst. Soon, I'll have enough money to afford ADSL.
 
ZombiePriest said:
I'm afraid it is browser hijacking. Browswer hijacking is when your browser goes to a site that is not of your choosing.

Browser Hijacking: A browser hijacking occurs when a browser gets set to a website which is not the user's choosing. Sometimes information gets rerouted to another site without the user's knowledge and makes the Internet connection run slower. Hijacks can change a user's homepage

http://www.cliftonpark.org/articles/content.asp?MemberID=3798

Maybe I can explain this by means of an analogy. Imagine that you are in Cape Town. You get in your car and you start driving to Durban. Only, your car starts driving on its own, the doors lock and you can't get out. When your car finally stops, you find yourself in Buluwayo. Your car followed the protocol the entire way, namely it stopped at all the red lights, gave the correct indications and kept within the speed limit. The only downside is you are now in Buluwayo instead of in Durban.

Would you be happy if your car did this? If not, why are you grateful when your browser does essentially the same thing? More than this, what if you took your car to the manufacturer to file a complaint and they tell you that they are very sorry, that's a user feature that the people from Zimbabwe requested. They didn't install anything on your car, or in your garage, it's a feature that they control from the manufacturer's head office in Port Elizabeth with a magic 8 ball and one $#@#$ magnet in Buluwayo.

Is your car being hijacked or is it being redirected? Do the semantics really matter or do you think it is acceptable for your car to drive somewhere you did not wish to go all by itself?

Frankly, I don't care what you want to call it but I will not like a car with a mind of its own. Likewise, I do not like my browser being redirected without my choosing.

This issue seems to be enjoying the attention it deserves so hopefully it will be resolved before next month. In the meanwhile I'm cashing in on people who are paying me to help them prevent this from happening to them. Thank you, iBurst. Soon, I'll have enough money to afford ADSL.
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Analogies are pointless. By ACTUAL definition it is NOT browser hijacking. The more networking knowledgeable of those on the forum have already conceded that much. (I won't argue my credentials but I am not exactly a simple man on the street when it comes to networking either)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_hijacker

Browser hijacking is an element that sits on the USER level. This sits on the ISP level and simply gives a redirect/different result after an HTTP request is made. (Let me reiterate that a Hijack is a software alteration - your "script" is more of a hijack than iburst's system ever was)

It's not a "hijack" it's a redirect.
 
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My browser, on client side, tries going somewhere I did not intend for it to go. It does not matter whether the actual execution happens server side or client side, except perhaps from legal or technical perspectives.

You can call it jabberwocky. Call it browser hijacking like me and my links, call it redirecting like you and your links, but the point is moot because this addresses symantics and not the real issue, namely that it results in high levels of user frustration.

Surely, as a service provider, users associating your service with ennui is something you'd like to avoid at all costs? Getting into a tussle about whether this is a feature, browser hijacking, browser redirecting or jabberwocky is *****footing about the fact that users are frustrated by this feature. When a service frustrates me, the last thing on my mind is buying more of that service. When I am provided great service, I will gladly pay for more of that service.

It is not a question of semantics. The car analogy is meant to explain to you in more familiar terms what the issue is, namely the user frustration associated with this feature. Not what the difference is between browser redirecting and browser hijacking, which I'm not qualified to do in the first place.

If someone beat you with a stick, but offered to stop after you gave them R50, would you call that a feature that they offer? Would you like to be beaten with a stick if it's only once or twice a day? What if they took a smaller stick with less spikes through it, and beat you from the other side? Would you feel better about being beaten with a stick?

To make this out to be an issue of semantics is missing the point. It really isn't complicated enough to require extensive networking qualifications or redirecting experience. Simply understand that this feature is annoying people and that it cannot possibly be driving people towards iBurst.

Whether you call ending up in Buluwayo when you intended to go to Durban hijacking or redirecting, I'm sure you can agree that this scenario is highly frustrating and that such a car is not, in fact, providing a service.

Would you buy this car if this feature is called redirecting versus hijacking, but the feature doesn't change?

I called my script a browser hijacker. The difference is that users may choose to install my script and after installing it they may choose to remove it. Users of my script thus have control over being involved in the redirecting and can opt out at any time, which is all I requested from iBurst's feature - opt me out. I'm all for the best of both worlds, because it gives users control.

Though, according to my links, my script can't be a browser hijacker because it offers you a choice of where you'd like to go. I'm happy with calling it a browser hijacker if you'd call it a browser redirector. However, I'm not installing it on anybody else's system, nor am I running anything server side hoping nobody would call it a browser hijacker. Users can call it what they like and add and remove it as they like.

Nevertheless, I'm over this. I solved this conundrum for myself so all the best to the rest of you frustrated by this redirecting service. Anybody is free to use my script if you'd also like to hijack your browser back (free of charge). Except Basjohn, you may use my script to redirect your browser back (and it's not free of charge to you, it's gratis).
 
Semantics are incredibly important when you start throwing around accusations.

What you're doing is claiming iburst smacked you with a cannonball when they really just threw an apple your way. Both hurt , both are shiny aaaaand both could (under the right circumstances) cause serious harm........but I assure you that if you'd try prosecuting the man who threw the apple you'd be laughed at when you claim it's a cannonball.

I never argued that this was a good thing..........I simply do not like this "crying wolf" mentality.

It feels almost the same as a user calling me up complaining about a virus when their taskbar is on the side of the screen.
 
Basjohn said:
Semantics are incredibly important when you start throwing around accusations.

What you're doing is claiming iburst smacked you with a cannonball when they really just threw an apple your way. Both hurt , both are shiny aaaaand both could (under the right circumstances) cause serious harm........but I assure you that if you'd try prosecuting the man who threw the apple you'd be laughed at when you claim it's a cannonball.

I never argued that this was a good thing..........I simply do not like this "crying wolf" mentality.

It feels almost the same as a user calling me up complaining about a virus when their taskbar is on the side of the screen.
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Agree with this man. He speaks the truth. BJ is one of the old iBurst old guards, he's reliable, honest and a straight shooter. +100
 
PeterCH said:
Agree with this man. He speaks the truth. BJ is one of the old iBurst old guards, he's reliable, honest and a straight shooter. +100
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Heh, Thankies. Not so sure I deserve those compliments but I'll damn well take em when I can get em!
 
OoMk0o5i3 said:
How did the ads load back in the day with xsinet? Can't you implement something similar?
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Xsinet was a 'free' dial-up ISP back in the early 90s, you had to use their dialler which displayed ads in the corner of your screen.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Not trying to go OT, but you're exposing your guests to 64Kb/s browsing?

That's just cruel! :)
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I actually found it difficult to tell that I was capped when browsing at 64k, I open a lot of links in the background so I don't see them loading. It was only when I tried to download a file that I saw the speed was throttled.

I think these throttling notice pages are a good thing (although I haven't experienced one yet). It would be nice if they could automatically redirect you to your intended destination after 5 seconds or so. Also, the opt-out option shouldn't be on the notice page itself, people tend to click things without reading.

One quick question, how do you know the request came from a browser?
If my anti-virus or some other program checks for updates (they often do this over http) is it possible it will receive the notice page and choke?
 
Hi all

On the issue of updates hitting the redirect Ginggs is correct there will also be a redirect on those, but these applications have retries built-in.

Should not be an issue.
 
I have an idea for mr ZombiePriest:

Modify your script to open a page, say google, at exactly 00:01 every day and after every reconnect. No blocking of and threatening of blocking networks. Thus no one will ever see that landing page.
 
OoMk0o5i3 said:
I have an idea for mr ZombiePriest:
Modify your script to open a page, say google, at exactly 00:01 every day and after every reconnect. No blocking of and threatening of blocking networks. Thus no one will ever see that landing page.
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Thank you OoMk0o5i3. I don't currently see the landing page with my script either, so I no longer need to block iBurst's website from my network as I am in control of my browser. Until they hatch the next evil plot, of course :D

The problem is solved for me, though my clients preferred not to install any funky pop-up scripts and preferred to keep iBurst's website blocked from their networks. Editing the hosts file is rather inelegant for me, but they feel safer with it blocked.

I'm also thankful that iBurst responded to this redirector nightmare so quickly on this forum. Getting hijacked/redirected once or twice per day is a marked improvement and for this to happen within 2 weeks is a considerably better response time than under the previous iBurst regime.

The SETI signals sent to the helpdesk are now considered to have succumbed to a ping timeout though.

Thank you, iBurst. Things are improving so keep this up.
 
Who cares

iBurst said:
Hi all

Please note that this is not browser hijacking.

It was a small redirect which was implimented by our network team at the request of Customer Services. It is having a positive effect on the amount of slow speed reports to the contact centre.

We are investigating streamlining the redirect if it is found to be too often.

Positive feedback would be prreciated.


Thanks
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I don't care whether it's hi-jacking or whatever term you would want to call it. It's beyond irritating it comes up at least 20 times even more during my online sessions at night. I purchase the giga package or playa because I always run out of cap at the end of the month and then being throttled helps a lot, but now when I send a request through it ends up on the iburst page saying I have no more Capp, but I can still browse at 65k. The second computer on my network working through a proxy just sort of hangs and takes forever to load in fact it doesn't even get redirected it just hangs and you have to eventually click on the button again before it goes to the page you requested.

First of all you are providing me with information I already got via email secondly even if I would like to purchase some extra capp your pricing is just too expensive to even consider and last but not least I paid for the throttle account so first off when you purchase these accounts you purchase them with the knowledge that you will most likely run out of capp. So already having to pay for 3gb you can't really afford to buy extra if it does run out because then you might as well switch to Telkom or Neotell and get 10 times more bandwidth for less.

Then you say it has a positive effect on customers is that because they haven't burned down your buildings yet or had the time to complain or did you actually test this by getting feedback from people on your throttle account. It might not be Browser Hi-jacking but it screws up your browsing experience completely and really bugs the living crap out of me at least you now gave me or made my decision for me to move to one of Neotells wireless packages I'm talking under correction but they selling an uncapped account for almost the same price as your 3gb accounts. Excellent for browsing and downloading just won't be able to play online games on it the pings are horrible.

So I can tell you now if you don't turn that crapp off for customers on the throttled account's you will loose clients well at least I'm going that's for sure.
 
Conkill said:
I don't care whether it's hi-jacking or whatever term you would want to call it. It's beyond irritating it comes up at least 20 times even more during my online sessions at night.
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When last did you get the redirect screen? And how often?
 
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