How do you turn off IE 8 from searching on a bad url?

Question

I hate it when I type or paste a bad url, and instead of just a 404 page coming up, which would allow me to modify the url, a search page comes up trying to search on the bad url.

How do I disable the search on bad url functionality?

Answer 1

In Internet Explorer, go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> scroll down to Search from the Address Bar -> make sure the "Do not search from the address bar" is selected.

Answer 2

You can also add blocklists for malicious URLs.

Spybot's Immunize feature and SpywareBlaster both have that capability.