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How to stop the Network Connections pop-up

The Network Connections pop-up, asking the user to 'Choose a network connection' appear when when misspelling a domain name in Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft Windows offers a feature that pops up the network connections dialog when a network connection is not available. This is convenient when using a dial-up modem to access the Internet. However, this feature can pretty annoying in some scenarios:

I have a broadband internet connection when working from home and sometimes - when using my laptop at friend's place - I have to use a traditional dial-up connection. When accessing the Internet through the broadband connection and visiting a web page containing an image where the web page author has misspelled the domain name in the image link will result in the operating system popping up the network connection dialog asking if I would like to use the dial-up connection. The same thing will happen if you misspell a domain name in the browser's address bar. This is clearly unwanted. I do not want to use the dial-up connection because of a misspelled domain name.

Another similar scenario where the network connection pop-up may appear is when working on a broadband connection and there's a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection configured on the machine. The pop-up will appear when trying to access a misspelled domain name.

Disable the 'Choose a network connection' pop-up

The 'Never dial a connection' setting is available in Internet Explorer's options dialog.

Follow the instructions below to disable the network connections pop-up:

  1. Start Internet Explorer
  2. In the Tools menu, click "Internet Options..."
  3. Select the Connections tab
  4. Check 'Never dial a connection"
  5. Press OK

Alternative method:

  1. Start the Windows Control Panel
  2. Double-click Internet Options
  3. Select the Connections tab
  4. Check 'Never dial a connection"
  5. Press OK

Comments

Mark Hahn writes

Show comment -5 thumbs

Jon writes

2 thumbs

Thank you!!!!! This was driving me crazy.

# 3 Jun 2009, 10:26

Robin of Bloggsly writes

1 thumb

Thanks , was driving me crazy too

# 8 Jun 2009, 4:18

Robin of Bloggsly writes

0 thumbs

Spoke too soon I did that never dial correction , connecting pop up still popping up .Any other suggestions PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

# 8 Jun 2009, 4:33

Sreekanth Iyer writes

1 thumb

Thanks for this useful blog entry. Got rid of the annoying popups.

# 23 Jun 2009, 21:17

Pappu writes

0 thumbs

Thanks for the tip !! Friggin popups have stopped !

# 12 Jul 2009, 2:07

Arpit writes

0 thumbs

Thanks a lot..it was really annoying!!

# 10 Aug 2009, 21:49

Ralph writes

0 thumbs

Outstanding! I don't know why these annoying pop-ups started, but they were getting on my nerves. Thank you!!!

# 16 Sep 2009, 20:00

John writes

1 thumb

didn't work for me, it was already set at that.

# 19 Oct 2009, 19:59

Gareth writes

-1 thumb

I kept getting the pop-up every time peerguardian started flashing/was blocking HTTP but this sorted it. Many thanks!

# 7 Nov 2009, 1:14

prathap writes

0 thumbs

very useful

# 20 Aug 2010, 4:39

Jawen writes

0 thumbs

It's nice for the people who were helped by this simple suggestion. However, for most of us the real question is how to get rid of the popup when we have already selected Never Dial a Connection. I don't use the internet and have connected no strange devices to my laptop, and I still get this annoying popup every time I turn the computer on.

# 29 Apr 2011, 16:13

MARTIN GARZA writes

0 thumbs

THANKS MAN, I WAS F***NG TIRED DUE TO THIS, WENT TO A GEEK BUT COULDN'T HEAL THAT PROBLEM. THANKS A TON :)

# 3 May 2011, 11:38

Jim writes

0 thumbs

I have the same problem, and "never dial a connection is set.
Pop asks to connect to a VPN anyway .. in both Firefox and IE. Much more often in IE

# 22 May 2011, 22:42

Roi writes

0 thumbs

Thanks! this always annoyed me.

# 1 Apr 2012, 9:01

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