Hi, all. I just downloaded the latest version of Chrome with my VPN turned on (to ensure that I got the US product). All was good, but the second I turned off my VPN (for faster browsing), my searches started getting redirected to google.com.hk. I'm no stranger to this problem, and know how to manage my search engines in Chrome. The thing is, there isn't a single reference to "hk" in my search engine options. My default is:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s

This is really annoying. Advice appreciated.

Hey moondog, you sure it is a chrome thing? I use IE9 and without VPN it periodically redirects me to google.com.hk.

For my computer, I wait a while and it goes back to normal and yeah, it is annoying.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

That's localization for any browser.
No wonder you and your friends alike got beat up in CN -

One of the reasons I don't use IE very often is that it's default search in China is bing, which I dislike even more than google hk. Well, I finally got around to changing it to google.com, which seems to have done the trick. But, chrome is really baffling me now with this hk stuff. "hk" appears nowhere within my search preferences, but the second I turn off my VPN, my searches start getting redirected. Again, this is a new problem for me that didn't rear its head until I reinstalled chrome.

Umm, I also noticed that I am being redirected to the local google.com site on my last Asian trip including sg, ph, hk, and jp.
Back in May/June it was google.com direct, no dot country after the com.

www.google.com redirects you always to the local google site, which for China seems to be Hong Kong. If you go to another local site such as google.co.uk or google.de you should get through.

For the US site you'd need to type www.google.com/ncr not to be redirected.

No idea if that works from China though. From Hong Kong it does.

http://www.google.com/support/websea....py?answer=873

I've had similar problems with Firefox for more than a year now. And because I have a Chinese version of Windows with an English overlay opening a new Google search window defaults to the Chinese version of the com.hk site.

As far as I recall somewhere below the search bar on the left there is a "use Google.com in English" link, but I'll try the "google.com/ncr" method when I get back to China later this week.

I've been trying to add your "ncr" google page as a new search engine, per the instructions in this article. I can add a new one, but I'm not seeing the "make default" option anywhere. Again, I've done this process in the past, but for some reason I'm at an impasse this time around.

I use chrome as the standard browswer. After entering the extension /ncr the English site becomes the default (In Hong Kong that is). Do you have cookies enabled? It is not a Chrome problem anyway.

Assuming cookies are enabled by default, they are enabled because I didn't mess with the privacy settings yet.

My default search is this

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s

When type in your ncr URL instead, the color of the field in question changes to red/pink (like I'm doing something naughty) and nothing gets saved. I am not seeing any "make default" or "okay" buttons.

I just checked two other computers here, which are each running different versions of chrome (one has an entirely different options interface; the old style). There too, I'm having trouble to get a new search engine (that I manually input) listed as default, but at least I can see "make default" and "okay" buttons. More importantly, those computers are not redirecting to google.com.hk, so there's no need to mess with them.

http://www.google.com/support/websea....py?answer=873

Update: I see that you have already tried this.

As your other machines are working, I think it's time that you checked your cookies. Click on the wrench button => Options => Under the Bonnet => Content Settings => All Cookies and Site Data. Then find google.com in the list of cookies (you can use the search box). You should have NID and PREF in there at least.

If they are there try removing them (easiest would be to put google.com in the search box and click Remove All), and then visit google.com again, assuming you still get redirected, click on the "Go to Google.com" button at the bottom of the page, and then revisit google.com.

If it still doesn't work, go back to the cookies and see what if any cookies exist under google.com and let us know.

Many thanks for your advice. Since I'm going back to the US (the land of faster downloads) in a few days, I'm planning on sorting this stuff out there. I might even purchase a new computer.

While i am not an IT expert, I have problems with Firefox on my 2 dell laptops here. In the office we have 6 computers, a mix of dell, Apple, & China IBM.
-They all seem to be abet different, i assumed it was the age/software issues, but now ?...

- as moondog said, the core problem is speed in china, which can vary on the time of day. i avoid 9 am & 5 pm (china time) internet use if possible durring week days.
- & any fiscal transactions are done on a hard line, never with wireless !.
- BTW, Dell ebay has some great prices on older laptops with all the US software... I have bought several that way & brought them here to China, & then the Dell service hotline will redirect you to India if calling from China.

Chrome has a related bug. Somewhere in the Chrome code applications can set a secondary localisation. If this is set then Chrome will ignore the domain you have in default search and instead load localised version. Its been around for a while and when I experienced it, it still had not been fixed.

You could manually remove the localisation and not experience the problem.

Just thought I'd add it as someone may look at this thread because he is experiencing this bug.

Yup, this is annoying and some searches on chrome in google itself should help the issue.

I still can't fix my phone's web browser though loading every page in Chinese.