ISP-supplied modem hijacks Safari homepage preference :-(

I recently signed up for a new integrated Internet/Phone/TV service from DartyBox, a French ISP, and during the set-up procedure (running the ISP's proprietary MacOS installer to set up the modem) it changed the homepage preference in Safari to its own AOL/DartyBox portal page. I changed it back to my usual preferred homepage, but everytime I wake my computer, the ISP has changed it back to their own. It only holds my own preference until the next time I put my MacBook to sleep.

Does anyone know if there's a way to prevent this from happening? It is REALLY annoying, and nothing on the ISP's help pages makes mention of this -- I assume because they don't want anyone to be able to override it.

If anyone has had this problem with DartyBox (or ANY ISP that foists its own homepage on its customers), I'd like to hear your solution...

Thanks!

SP

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 23, 2008 11:34 AM

17 replies

iBod

Level 7

29,351 points

Jun 24, 2008 2:55 PM in response to SmartypantsFR

Hi SmartyPants,

Well that's good news at least.

I don't have OS X 10.5 to check with, but under Tiger the homepage setting is stored in a preference file.

If this file exists in 10.5:

Hard drive > Users > Your Username > Library > Preferences > com.apple.internetconfig.plist

try quitting Safari completely and then moving it to your Desktop. Restart Safari and hopefully the homepage will have defaulted back to Apples start page (www.apple.com/startpage). Assuming it has, try resetting the homepage to your preference once more.

We've seen some very stubborn cases in the past regarding homepage settings so there may be other things to try if this fails as well.

Jun 26, 2008 12:40 AM in response to iBod

Thanks for all this input and advice. _I finally resolved the problem_, although not as suggested. Just in case someone stumbles in here with a similar issue, here's the skinny:

Deleting preference files didn't resolve the problem. (And I tried all ways: I moved and deleted the internet config plist file, the Safari plist file, another plist file that was in the "By Host" folder within Preferences folder; I also changed names of the moved copies of the files just in case the system might go looking for them elsewhere, and I even copied them to a flash drive and deleted them, emptying the trash so that there was no way the system could read them.)

What ended up fixing it was this:

_*1. Turned off Airport (ending communication with modem)*_

_*2. Launched Safari*_

_*3. Changed homepage preference*_

_*4. Restarted Safari*_

_*5. Turned Airport back on*_

I just wanted to see what Safari would do during its startup process if it had no way to receive the unwanted instruction.

Whatever deal Safari made with my modem while running the ISP's set-up application seems to have been made null and void by restarting Safari and setting its preferences without the outside influence of the modem when it rewrote its preferences file(s). (At least that's how it appears to this non-techie.)

Thanks SO MUCH for all the help. Even though I figured it out the final solution myself, if it hadn't been for finding out Safari could run on another account without the problem repeating, this would never have occurred to me.

SP 😀

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ISP-supplied modem hijacks Safari homepage preference :-(