Whenever you click a link to a website that does no longer exist or type a wrong URL, you are shown an error page like this, which says the site can’t be found:
Turns out, while true for 99% of the cases, there are some situations where this is wrong. Some websites are apparently unreachable over older networks, something to do with certain internet service providers running outdated infrastructure. In these cases, the website DOES exist and is running just fine. It’s your local network that is the issue and you could still visit the website if you use another network:
Now my feedback: Brave should tell us when this happens!
I won’t speak for everyone, but if i could load a website just fine by using another network, i would want to give that a try if it’s important enough. That is why i believe there should be a separate error message for these situations. (Also, reading up on the Wikipedia page of IPv6, it seems that this issue is going to happen a lot more in the future…)
Well to clarify, the message is just saying that the site can’t be reached, not that it doesn’t exist. Additionally, the browser has no way of knowing why the site can’t be reached, just that it can’t. The browser (and this is true for any browser) is routed through the network its using to connect to the internet – the only way the browser could know or test if it works on another network would be to attempt to ping or visit that site using another network – which is not something that can be done automatically for obvious reasons.
Given the above, this message is as accurate as you’re going to get from any browser, as it is saying exactly what was encountered.
It says right below the big title: “DNS address could not be found.”
To my understanding, the DNS that converts website names into computer addresses can give both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses regardless of whether you actually have IPv6. This means that you can ask for both types of records and make that distinction, right? Then it should be possible to show a more accurate error message too, i believe.
And even the “refused to connect.” that i sometimes see would fit this situation more?
Yes, the DNS converts the website name into addresses. So the browser looks for that address, can’t find it, and reports back that the address can’t be found. If it said “refuses to connect”, that would imply that the browser did in fact find the site/address, but cannot connect to it. Which is not accurate.
As far as the browser knows, the address cannot be found – if the issue is related to the network your on, then I’d refer back to my original statement where the browser has no way to know or test whether or not it can be found on another network.
Further, this is not specific to Brave. Any other browser will give you the same or similar message when this is encountered.
So Brave should know where it is and at least attempt to connect to it.
(And if that fails, then the “can’t connect” error may appear, which is a lot more accurate)
Also, if other browsers are doing the same thing, why not check there?
If i am right, then surely someone should have reported something similar there, right?
Edit: About 8 months ago there was a Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/1fe8p6q/browsers_should_inform_about_missing_ipv6/
It has a whole rant and links multiple bug report pages. Seems i am not the only one who was affected by this. He points out in one sentence what i am trying to say:
“This error page is EXACTLY the same as the one you get for non-existing websites, which will lead people to think that the website does not exist.”
