content: Add new post: "Did you mean to go to..."

1 files changed, 31 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/content/2/index.md b/content/2/index.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..16f748c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/2/index.md
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
++++
+date = 2021-06-12T19:47:12+02:00
+title = "Did you mean to go to..."
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["TIL"]
++++
+
+In recent versions of Firefox, single words are looked up via DNS when you enter
+them in the URL bar. If the word resolves, the browser "helpfully" indicates
+that there's a page at `http://<word>` to visit.
+
+Weird feature, though when taken at face value I can see its usefulness with a
+combined search and URL bar. Ideally you'd have completely different semantics
+for searching and (direct) browsing, but I don't think something like this is
+forthcoming. If anything I'd expect direct browsing to be ever more discouraged.
+Nowadays search engines, not browsers, are the gateway to the internet.
+
+In any case, turns out this feature also has [interesting
+side-effects](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/1642623) with (browser-based) DoH
+turned on. If you ever need to turn it off, Firefox 78 added the following
+about:config switch:
+
+```
+browser.urlbar.dnsResolveSingleWordsAfterSearch
+```
+
+Not that I think this is a great solution. If anything DoH should be done on a
+system-wide level (with local queries sent to your router or resolved through
+mDNS) and there should be a way of trusting your router's DNS to not forward
+local queries to your ISP.