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Anyone else had their Bookmarks/Favourites hijacked by BT/parental controls?

Has this ever happened to anyone?   

Engineer came out to replace faulty router.  On using my laptop (macbookpro, Safari, all up to date) afterwards I was watching Youtube and wanting to investigate IMDb.  Clicked on my bookmarks, selected IMDb.  For a fraction of a second it showed IMDb in the search bar but then instantly switched to a BT page with an isp address in the bar, and information about setting up parental controls.  Two button options to select - do later, or proceed now.

OBVIOUSLY (duh) I was not going to click on anything unfamiliar, and somewhat freaked out and definitely confused I closed that BT page.  Tried again.  Same thing.  Closed it again.  Googled IMDb, found it, logged into IMDb without issue direct from Google.

Some time later I selected the BBC news website to read, again from my Bookmarks dropdown.  Exactly the same thing happened.  I repeated EXACTLY the same process as before and could then read the BBC news via Google, but not via my own Bookmarks - where all I could obtain was the same BT page as before.

Furious - I phoned BT and spoke with someone who was very understanding, but absolutely without clue as to what on earth was happening and how on earth BT could hijack my own personal Bookmarks on my own personal computer to INSIST I review the parental controls before letting me use my own computer.  A MAJOR WTF experience.

I absolutely refused to click on those buttons on the 'dodgy' page, so I logged in to my own BT account separately (oddly I could access it via Bookmarks) to attempt to alter the parental controls in that way.  Shut down the computer.  Restarted and it  *seems* to be working as it should again.

I was shaking with anger (I made it clear was not directed at her, bless her!) but insisted she pass on the recording/transcript of our phone call to whoever would be able to shed light on this disgraceful behaviour.  I have also asked her to request a full explanation to be sent to me from "the powers that be" as to how on earth they can possibly justify it.  Whether they respond effectively remains to be seen.

Anyone had similar?  Any other experiences would be interesting to hear.

 

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Message 2 of 3

Re: Anyone else had their Bookmarks/Favourites hijacked by BT/parental controls?

@JT53 

You need to disable Smart Setup on the home hub, as that is intercepting your requests.

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/what-is-smart-setup-on-the-bt-hub--how-can-i-turn-it-on-and-off-

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Message 3 of 3

Re: Anyone else had their Bookmarks/Favourites hijacked by BT/parental controls?

Thanks for the link, but am still confused even after reading as it doesn't seem to be related to this issue.  

The router was changed (again) two or three months ago and I did not have this occur back then.  It was myself who installed it last time, after it had been posted to me via Royal Mail.  

Today's was installed by the engineer after that one failed two days ago after these two/three months.   Though to clarify, he installed a first one this morning which turned out to be duff, then a second unit immediately after which is what is in use now.

As I say, nothing like this happened at all last time, so why now?  And more confusingly -

If Smart Setup is indeed the problem:   For one thing - why would it only intercept SOME requests  - i.e. IMDb & BBC disallowed, BT allowed...?

But also - I have done nothing to disable Smart Setup, but only logged into my BT account via the search-bar and set up parental controls.  

Nothing else.

As I CAN now once again access sites via my Bookmarks, how could Smart Setup be involved if I've not disabled it?

Can you appreciate why most anyone would be confused?!  

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