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What Is An 'about:blank' Screen That Showed Up?

13 years ago

XP3/IE7/2003Dell4600Desktop/AVG. Howdy. On accessing the Net I always go directly to the Google search page. This morning it did not appear. A blank screen came up reading "about:blank" in the web site block.

I've never seen anything like that. I restored Google through Internet Options. What bug/virus have I got? I read a little about it which seems more involved than my knowledge will allow. Any suggestions/thoughts/ideas grately appreciated. Thanks, Gene

Comments (5)

DA_Mccoy
13 years ago
First guesses are the homepage link had expired, the pointer itself corrupted, or the server at Google that the pointer linked was down.

Did you by chance get any type of error code? Perhaps 304?

DA
candler
Original Author
13 years ago
Hello, dm. Thanks for the reply. I turn my computer off at night. No error message this morning - just the internal change from Google.com to "about:blank". It was a total shocker until logic began to prevail. I've had the Google search page as my homepage for a pretty long time. I didn't know they were subject to time. AVG found two "trojan horse downloader.generic 101xw", I think. I've no idea what that is. I only run AVG weekly. Maybe I need to do it more often. Could something within IE changed the homepage other than a time expiration? Thanks, Gene
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zep516
13 years ago
Try putting your home page In IE back to Google like you had it. See if it stays.

About blank is or can be a hijacker. I have not seen it though in quite a while. Use to be part of the Coolwebsearch Infection.

This is the infection in the link below use to be quite common,

http://www.pchell.com/support/aboutblank.shtml

Again reste your home page In IE back to Google and see if stays there.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
13 years ago
It can be legit or as zep said sometimes part of a hijacker, my guess is in your case if it only happened once and you were able to restore your home page and it is working it was a legit about:blank. Many people set their home page for about:blank so that when they open the browser they are at a blank page ready to go and not on a heavily laden page that takes time to load, especially useful for those on dial up.

of course running an updated malwarebytes scan is always a good idea anyway.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
13 years ago
since AVG did find trojans I would definitely like to see a malwarebytes scan run just to make sure all the pieces and parts were eliminated.
How to download and install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware application for Windows computers

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