Browser Hijack or Firefox problem?

pansophia

Last week I put a search term in the Firefox search box (set to Google), and I got the German version of Google. The first time I tried to type www.google.com in the address box, it redirected again to the German Google. This was the first time this had ever happened.

I thought it was a fluke, so I ignored. As I used the search box over the next few days, it worked as expected, taking me to the English results page.

However, today the redirect came back - but this time to the Russian Google! And once again, the first couple of times I typed www.google.com into the address box, it redirected back to google.ru! The third time I got back to the English page.

Is this a problem with Google's servers, a problem with the Firefox search box component, or a browser hijack? I ran Spybot, but it didn't find anything.

S3nd K3ys

Are you using one of those on-line proxys?

pansophia

Yes - I use Tor sometimes. Is that causing it?

dz9c

Traveller

Google tries to localize the page that it presents to you by examining the IP address that it sees for you. If you are using a proxy, it sees the proxy's IP instead of yours, so it localizes the page to the country of the proxy. You can make sure you get the right language by allowing Google to set cookies, then changing your Google preferences.

pansophia

Thanks for replying to this! I'm so relieved. Smile

erlendhg

You may also set your language number one in Firefox's settings.
Click on "advanced" and there is a button with the word "language" in its name... (i think..) (I'm using Norwegian Firefox...)