Vodacom hijacks 404 errors? WTF?

[frankvw]

Since a few days (it may have been going on for longer) I've noticed that when I access the Internet through Vodacom, Vodacom redirects 404 errors from some websites. Clicking on a broken link doesn't give me the usual '404 error' page generated by the browser (on sites that don't implement their own 404 handling) but redirects me to "Vodacom Flex" which looks like a portal/search sort of thing. See here: http://flex.vodacom.co.za/err/zerod-web/p/zerod-home/#/?ab_splash=splash404&err=404

Not only is this extremely annoying, but I also find it a very dubious business practice to hijack a customer's connection (not to mention their web browsing experience) in order to shove a totally crappy portal site in their face.

I've tried to find out what Vodacom Flex is supposed to be, and I get the impression that it has something to do with options to have limited Internet access without using data (or after your data bundle has run out) but surely a 404 error shouldn't trigger that behavior...

Is there a way to get around this $h1t?

// FvW

 

[Rickster]

@jannievanzyl

 

[captainscarlet]

Getting the same errors as well. Very irritating. Especially when you want to see the actual response you got from your service

 

[Leno]

load cloudflare warp app and dont let vodacom snoop on your connection

I assume these sites you are browsing are not https?

 

[Dups!]

Vodacom has become one rubbish network. If I do not get those errors it hangs.

It used to very good on this network but these days it is just pathetic.

 

[fmr]

Still happening these days ... It looks like it sometimes also happens on 403, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

 

[fmr]

This was blocking my Linux updates whenever I use a repository that does not have the "InRelease" file, e.g. http://mirror.ufs.ac.za/linuxmint-packages . The "apt" or "apt-get" package managers first check if the InRelease file exists, and then tries the next thing if that returns 404. Obviously Vodacom flex messes that up by hijacking the HTTP transaction.

Some suggested workarounds:

• Use HTTPS. Your ISP can't change transactions that use TLS. (Unfortunately I could not find a Linux Mint repository that uses HTTPs).
• Block flex.vodacom.co.za by mapping it to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) in your hosts file. On Linux it's at /etc/hosts. On Windows, its C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
• Use Afrihost

 

[fmr]

I just realized that my workaround with the hosts file only works if you have a web server running on localhost:80. You could point flex.vodacom.co.za to any IP that is guaranteed to respond with 404, and apt will work again.