Any idea what this website is? Just found it in my program list, don’t know what it is or how it got there. Have searched for it but can’t find any info. Is this something AOL dumped on me? Thanks in advance for your help. http://i.api.grvcdn.com/…
There’s a certain amount of detective work we can perform with this link to help you figure out what it is, but let’s address the “how it got into my history list” question first, because it can be quite alarming to see sites show up that you’ve never visited. This happens through what’s called an “iframe” reference, a way that a Web page can have content from a completely different web page embedded. So what’s happened is that you visited a page with a completely different domain and it included a banner advert or similar from the GRVCDN.COM site. This actually happens all the time – even with my site – because that’s a common way that ad networks are designed. It’s also why visiting a site can give you “cookies” from other domains too: they’re all sharing your visit!
The more interesting question is what is this darn domain? and the most obvious thing to do is to try and actually serve up the URL and see what is shown. Unfortunately, when I tested it, I never did get an image, even if the full URL ends with “.png”:
http://i.api.grvcdn.com/personalization/sites/aol/maing.92e3c410d5e1961b05c36b9e74034b4a.png
So let’s approach this a different way. First, a quick “whois” lookup reveals the owner of the domain GRVCDN.COM:
As you suspected, it’s an America Online (AOL) domain, owned by the Virginia-based corporation.
But what is it? That’s when you need to know a common Web serving acronym: CDN. CDN = content delivery network. And that’s the secret revealed, actually. GRVCDN.COM is a content delivery network for AOL so it’s a way for the AOL administrative team to load share and ensure that you have a fast browsing experience by having popular images like the one referenced saved on a fast, tuned system.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this particular domain is actually associated with HTTPS Everywhere, as they explain:
Embedded content loaded from third-party domains (for example, YouTube, Google Analytics, ad networks, or CDNs) may also be affected. You can test this by loading the web page in question in a browser with HTTPS Everywhere installed and pulling down the HTTPS Everywhere rules menu. This will show a list of HTTPS Everywhere rules that were applied as the page was loaded, including rules that might have affected embedded content from other domains.
Probably more than you wanted to know, but that’s the scoop. Nothing to be too concerned about, but props to you for paying attention to the sites that your system visits without you even realizing what’s going on!