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Google sign-in, support, and some other Google links redirect to local community college sign-in page.

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I use DuckDuckGo for searching things, however, I do need to log into Google every now and then for things like YouTube and whatnot. I attempted to log in from YouTube today and was greeted by the sign-in page for Ivy Tech, a community college in Indiana (the state I live in). That was obviously not where I wanted to go. I then went to google.com and attempted to sign-in there. I was redirected again to Ivy Tech's sign-in page. I knew this had to be due to malware or something similar, and my assumption was confirmed by a few forum posts that complained about issues similar to this. When searching about the problem, I discovered Google's support site also redirects me to Ivy Tech.

Going to the Google sign-in page on Microsoft Edge and Chrome works fine, so this is clearly within Firefox itself. I recently was on Ivy Tech's site about a month and a half ago to apply there, but I have successfully signed into Google with Firefox a few times since then without trouble. Tonight was the first time I've run into this issue. The last time I signed into Google was probably two weeks ago.

Any insight as to why this is occurring and how to resolve it, and possibly, as to why a community college has apparently hijacked my Firefox, would be much appreciated.

I use DuckDuckGo for searching things, however, I do need to log into Google every now and then for things like YouTube and whatnot. I attempted to log in from YouTube today and was greeted by the sign-in page for Ivy Tech, a community college in Indiana (the state I live in). That was obviously not where I wanted to go. I then went to google.com and attempted to sign-in there. I was redirected again to Ivy Tech's sign-in page. I knew this had to be due to malware or something similar, and my assumption was confirmed by a few forum posts that complained about issues similar to this. When searching about the problem, I discovered Google's support site also redirects me to Ivy Tech. Going to the Google sign-in page on Microsoft Edge and Chrome works fine, so this is clearly within Firefox itself. I recently was on Ivy Tech's site about a month and a half ago to apply there, but I have successfully signed into Google with Firefox a few times since then without trouble. Tonight was the first time I've run into this issue. The last time I signed into Google was probably two weeks ago. Any insight as to why this is occurring and how to resolve it, and possibly, as to why a community college has apparently hijacked my Firefox, would be much appreciated.

Chosen solution

Glad you have "cleared" your issue, DJD119. May be there were some corrupted cookies, may be some corrupted cache.

Here is what I have been doing in my Firefox: There were some Microsoft sites that required I have third-party cookies to sign in there a long time ago.

Because of that, I accept first- and third-party cookies, but I dump cookies and cache when I close Firefox. I set exceptions to KEEP cookies related to my sites where I have preferences set and sites that set cookies to remember my last sign-in.

I use always long and complex passwords that I save in my Password Manager, itself behind a single remembered password. Every site has passwords that resemble "@M]^4e" and over 12 characters long. I don't have to type them in, and if a site gets hacked, there are few, IF ANY passwords that will open a second site in my name.

When running Windows, even Android, an AV app and a malware scanner are necessary evils. Keep them current and updated with the latest databases.

One more thing I do, I always launch the Firefox Profile Manager. From there I launch FF in my Default profile nearly all the time, but if I have an issue, this page won't load, or whatnot, I will launch from a new, clean profile. My Default has seen a few years' use now, and once in a while I hit a snag. I'll dump the cookies from the troublesome site and dump my cache. That usually gets me running again.

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Okay, I have just deleted a ton of cookies, and revised my settings so that third-party cookies will not be made. The redirect is gone for now, but I will report back if it appears again.

I found several cookies for Ivy Tech's various sites, as well as a few from related organizations that are linked to Ivy Tech's site.

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Chosen Solution

Glad you have "cleared" your issue, DJD119. May be there were some corrupted cookies, may be some corrupted cache.

Here is what I have been doing in my Firefox: There were some Microsoft sites that required I have third-party cookies to sign in there a long time ago.

Because of that, I accept first- and third-party cookies, but I dump cookies and cache when I close Firefox. I set exceptions to KEEP cookies related to my sites where I have preferences set and sites that set cookies to remember my last sign-in.

I use always long and complex passwords that I save in my Password Manager, itself behind a single remembered password. Every site has passwords that resemble "@M]^4e" and over 12 characters long. I don't have to type them in, and if a site gets hacked, there are few, IF ANY passwords that will open a second site in my name.

When running Windows, even Android, an AV app and a malware scanner are necessary evils. Keep them current and updated with the latest databases.

One more thing I do, I always launch the Firefox Profile Manager. From there I launch FF in my Default profile nearly all the time, but if I have an issue, this page won't load, or whatnot, I will launch from a new, clean profile. My Default has seen a few years' use now, and once in a while I hit a snag. I'll dump the cookies from the troublesome site and dump my cache. That usually gets me running again.

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This is probably more likely a problem with the disk cache or the connection settings.

You can check the connection settings.

  • Options/Preferences -> General -> Network: Connection -> Settings

If you do not need to use a proxy to connect to internet then try to select "No Proxy" if "Use the system proxy settings" or one of the others do not work properly.

See "Firefox connection settings":