I have access to a True ISP in my office. Whenever the router is rebooted (nLink wifi) and a computer browser is opened the browser is redirected to http://welcome.truelife.com/ web site rather than the url of choice. This only happens on first use, subsequent browser usage goes direct to url chosen. The process repeats whenever the nLink router is rebooted.

Can anyone explain what is happening and how to skip the automated redirect to http://welcome.truelife.com/ at start please?

I think it is hard coded into the router

Basically I see two ways this can be setup.

One is to simply return every http request with the one of the service providers home page.

The other one is to return a faked DNS record for the first DNS lookup. Normally the DNS setting will grab the DNS server from what the DHCP server is giving. (router is probably the DHCP server in this case)

You can probably test this by setting the DNS server to a public one for example 8.8.8.8 in your local computer. How to do this depends on you OS.

But is short (I'm not on a MS machine now but from my memory on WInXP it is like this)...

Take properties on the network connection and then properties on the tcp/ip protocol. There are two fields for primary and secondary DNS.

Fill in 8.8.8.8 in the first field. and then ok until you are out...

This will bypass the dns server in your router meaning your router is not in charge of the DNS records.... This may work or not...

Maybe someone on an MS machine can give a better description?

Martin

Edited July 18, 201015 yr by siamect

on WinXP I use DNS Jumper to do the dirty job :-)

http://www.sordum.com/?p=4573

on WinXP I use DNS Jumper to do the dirty job :-)

http://www.sordum.com/?p=4573

Don't install unnecessary junk...

Edited July 18, 201015 yr by siamect

Maybe someone on an MS machine can give a better description?

Martin

Thanks I hope someone can post the MS procedure to achieve this sometime, as it is rather annoying of True.

It probably uses the same technique as a 'captive portal' in wireless hotspots that require payment.

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

Wikipedia lists 3 techniques, one of them being the 'DNS poisoning' that one can (probably) work around just like siamect pointed out.

I like tools that makes things easy

The tool combines a bunch of features into a convenient interface: change DNS settings for all network cards at once, simple performance test, list of public DNS servers.

It is listed on Softpedia.com and should be safe, but no 100% guarantee. Of course if I had the source code I would check the code now, but it's not open source (some irony and some truth in that statement)

welo

google 'how to change dns server in windows [xp|vista|7]'

on WinXP I use DNS Jumper to do the dirty job :-)

http://www.sordum.com/?p=4573

Don't install unnecessary junk...

Sorry when I re-read my own post this sounds awfully rude. I apologize...

An earlier version of this software actually did trigger AVG but Sordium say they have corrected that now. Whether this was a false alarm or not we will never know.

Martin

Edited July 19, 201015 yr by siamect