Google thinks all netgear routers use captive portals
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Google omits step 2, leading the reader to believe that simply opening a web browser will prompt them to log in.
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I don't get it.
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I don't get it.
i agree.... a picture might be worth a thousand words, but sometimes you need the words.
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Best I can see is Google's info omits the step 2 that is in the instructions from (I assume) NETGEAR.
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Best I can see is Google's info omits the step 2 that is in the instructions from (I assume) NETGEAR.
i noticed that, but unless i'm very much mistaken that excerpt is pulled from the page in question verbatim. Given that i seem to be getting slightly different responses from the site depending on what user agent i'm getting i'm assuming they show google bot some sort of hinting markup (something that google does let you do to get it to crawl your site better) that for some reason marks the second bullet point as not relevant to the answer and so google removed it from the excerpt.
they may not even have done it intentionally since the way google parses pages is weird, changes constantly and google will never tell you all the rules it uses to separate ad from content.
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Sorry, I meant to edit the post but my computer had a fit when my router rebooted (for unrelated reasons), and I had to restart a couple times before internet would work again.
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It's partially true actually. http://www.routerlogin.net is usually DNS resolved by default on Netgear routers by the factory firmware to itself. Also, for newer routers it actually does captive portal until it recognizes it has an internet connection. ;)
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Oh, it's used in Chromebooks when I connect to public wifi with a captive portal, so I assumed it was a more common term now. Basically it's just those screens that say "agree to our terms and conditions to use the internet" after you connect to the wifi.
@Tsaukpaetra I didn't know that about newer ones, that's actually pretty neat.
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It makes a type of sense, almost, for google to omit the second step of a list of instructions like this, if the instruction is just to visit some web page.
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I initially skipped over it because I thought it was an ad.
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@ben_lubar, are you google? You have to tell us if you are google.
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1. He uses Go and actively advocates it
3. He uses a Chromebook (but so do I)That's three reasons to believe that he is Google.
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It's also entirely possible that at one point in time, those were the instructions, and the Googlebot hasn't parsed the new ones yet.
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Actually, does anyone have any idea how long it takes to update that kind of... "Smart" answer box thing? I imagine it takes longer than a standard site index, because there may be some human interaction required to ensure the Googlebot isn't scraping junk answers?
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Actually, does anyone have any idea how long it takes to update that kind of... "Smart" answer box thing?
It depends how often they scrape the site I believe, which is a variable interval. It also depends on what other people are linking to and when those links were made. Usual stuff.
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It makes a type of sense, almost, for google to omit the second step of a list of instructions like this, if the instruction is just to visit some web page.
Some operating systems do a test connect to some website behind the scenes and pop up built-in browser window to let you log in if you can't get through. This is both convenient and potentially a bit creepy.
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Windows too. Although it doesn't generally pop up the browser window, it gives you a little notification bubble instead.
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Some operating systems do a test connect to some website behind the scenes and pop up built-in browser window to let you log in if you can't get through.
Chrome OS does this too - very useful. It usually closes automatically as soon as it detects working connection, just like on Android, so usually you never realize that the captive portal is redirecting you to their website instead of where you wanted to go.
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All major OSes do this now. Android has a "Generate 204" url, Microsoft does much the same, and Apple does as well.
I once wrote a small script for Network Manager on IF-Up to check for connectivity to a well-known host and do much the same of it returned an unexpected data stream.Oh bugger, 'd right there. Stupid don't-wait-to-reply response!