- Nov 5, 2011
- 5,855
Chrome connects to three random domains at startup News for Chrome fans ..
Chrome connects to three random domains at startup: on MikeWest.org: https://mikewest.org/2012/02/chrome-connects-to-three-random-domains-at-startup
QUOTE:
'When you start Chrome, it attempts to connect to three random domains like http://aghepodlln/ or http://lkhjasdnpr/. I’ve seen a few theories about why exactly this happens that brush up against the nefarious. The true rationale is incredibly mundane: hopefully this short summary will clear things up.
The goal of the requests is to determine if you’re currently on a network that intercepts and redirects requests for nonexistent hostnames. For example, it’s not at all uncommon for ISP to transparently redirect failed DNS lookups in order to convert requests like http://text/ into requests for http://your.helpful.isp/search?q=text. Leaving aside a discussion of the rightness or wrongness of these “helpful” activities, this behavior causes problems for Chrome. Specifically, it breaks some heuristics the Omnibox uses to determine whether a user means to search for a specific term, or to visit a non-standard domain name.'
'Chrome makes three requests to random domains just after startup in order to provide its Omnibox heuristics with enough information to correctly work out a user’s intent. These requests are not sending your valuable data anywhere for nefarious purposes, nor are they useful for tracking purposes.'
'So there you have it.'
Chrome connects to three random domains at startup: on MikeWest.org: https://mikewest.org/2012/02/chrome-connects-to-three-random-domains-at-startup
QUOTE:
'When you start Chrome, it attempts to connect to three random domains like http://aghepodlln/ or http://lkhjasdnpr/. I’ve seen a few theories about why exactly this happens that brush up against the nefarious. The true rationale is incredibly mundane: hopefully this short summary will clear things up.
The goal of the requests is to determine if you’re currently on a network that intercepts and redirects requests for nonexistent hostnames. For example, it’s not at all uncommon for ISP to transparently redirect failed DNS lookups in order to convert requests like http://text/ into requests for http://your.helpful.isp/search?q=text. Leaving aside a discussion of the rightness or wrongness of these “helpful” activities, this behavior causes problems for Chrome. Specifically, it breaks some heuristics the Omnibox uses to determine whether a user means to search for a specific term, or to visit a non-standard domain name.'
'Chrome makes three requests to random domains just after startup in order to provide its Omnibox heuristics with enough information to correctly work out a user’s intent. These requests are not sending your valuable data anywhere for nefarious purposes, nor are they useful for tracking purposes.'
'So there you have it.'
