[squid-users] Browser auto-complete and squid

[Nick]

On most web browsers have URL auto-completion. If put a single word URL 
in the location bar. If the DNS lookup fails, the browser prepends www. 
and appends .com to the name then tries again. If the new URL DNS lookup 
matches, the URL is loaded.

So, if I type in BBC into the location bar, bbc fails. The browser then 
tries www.bbc.com. This is valid. Mozilla will then take me to 
www.bbc.com (which in this case, immediately re-directs me to bbc.co.uk)

When the browser points to a caching proxy, it never fails a DNS lookup 
so the browser auto-complete never cuts in. I can't think of any browser 
level solution, however, this functionality could easily be employed at 
the caching proxy level.

I would like a way to set squid so that if it received a one-word URL, 
it first tries to resolve the URL (It may be a valid hostname on the 
local network). If resolution fails, it tries prepending www and 
appending .com to the URL. If the new URL is valid, sends a redirect to 
the web browser to the new URL. This is important where I have deployed 
a cybercafe with Squid as the caching proxy; many users expect the URL 
auto-complete to work.

Any ideas how I could add this functionality to squid would be great.