Hi,

I changed my default standard search from Avantfind to Google (Orca Browser Options --> Search Engine --> Standard Search --> Web). Orca uses this search whenever I execute a super drag-and-drop of anything that is not a web address (e.g., highlighted text, mispelled URLs, etc), which is pretty handy. However, I've noticed that these searches are getting blocked by PeerGuardian, which tells me it is blocking an HTTP connection to HopOne Internet Corporation. Why is this? the URL bar shows the Google search, but it looks like Orca connects to HopOne first. If I highlight the URL and press enter manually, the Google search will execute without incident.

So what's on HopOne that Orca needs, before it'll do my Google search? What kind of data is being sent/collected?

Thanks

From what I can gather.. Hopone is just one of the backbones that ISPs get their connection to the internet from. They aren't a data gathering/mining service or anything to worry about really. If it makes you feel any better Microsoft is on the list of IP addresses that gets contacted when I searched google through the search box in Orca. But that only happened once. And it might just have to do with one of the ads that was on google results page at the time.

I don't think you have to worry about Anderson trying to do anything malicious.

When Avant's pages were down lately, the searchbox, which is set to google for me, didn't work because the server google.avantforce.com couldn't be contaced. The URL bar however displayed google.com as site, and the "Go to"-button lauched Google with no problems..

Yeah, when PeerGuardian blocks HopOne, Orca tells me that it cannot connect to google.avantforce.com. So, avantforce.com is what's hosted on HopOne (as are these forums). I think it's coded into the browser to first connect to the default Avant Search (avantforce.com) whenever a search is executed, but then if you replace it with a different search engine like Google, as you and I have done, it'll switch over immediately and perform the search there instead.

One issue with this, however, is if avantforce.com is down, like it was for you. Then searches could take an unnecessarily long time because they have to wait for avantforce.com before being redirected to Google, instead of going directly to Google. This could mean seeing a server down error, slower searches, or even worse, waiting for a timeout...

Just a thought guys do you really need PeerGuardian what if you removed that. Would the problem be solved.

I don't usually run PeerGuardian but I turn it on if I need to download something P2P (I don't have cable in my new place; gotta keep up with my shows! hehe). I wouldn't have known Orca connects to HopOne, had I not needed to download some episodes...