About:Blank

[liz1954]

Hi, I have a Dimension 3000, xp pro, ie8. I recently posted here about my list of security. That question was answered. One of the items was a firewall. I went to the links provided here and up pops an About:Blank page and then the link appears. Now while I was surfing through this website before I posted the first time, I read a query in the General Computer Forum/OS/Winxp, last post was on Jan 14 2010, at 8:21:53 am by PC Bruiser, the person was advised that this is a old infection and to post in a different forum. Now am I infected? and if so was it from my side or did it come through the links on the page of firewalls that I saved to my favorites? I do not get that blank page from links on other websites. Will check back soon, I am going to go run some scans. Bye.

[Hoov]

A blank homepage is not always an infection. Check to see what your homepage setting is, and what the setting is for opening new tabs. I used to be on a dialup connection and intentionally set my homepage and nenew tabs be blank. If your browser is set to open a new tab from a clicked link, or you told your browser to open the link in a new tab, and it is set to open to a blank page, and the server the link was pointing to is a bit on the slow side, you may see the about:blank label for a second before the new page actually opens.

Does this help?

[liz1954]

Hoov, Hi and thanks for the response. My homepage is set to current(yahoo) and tabs to open in a new tab. I was worried for a minute or more. I just finished my scans and nothing was found so I am a happy camper!

[Hoov]

You said that

tabs to open in a new tab

But are they set to open a blank page?

[liz1954]

Hoov, they are set to open in the new tab page, not a blank.? Sorry, about not replying sooner I thought the topic was done, Liz.

[liz1954]

Hoov, I just wanted to add that this only happens on the firewall links, (see reply #3 in my windows firewall post). Everywhere else all opens normally. Liz.

[Hoov]

I think I see what you are saying, you are using IE correct? I very rarely use it, so I am not as up on its nuances as I am with Firefox, but my earlier statement applies. When you click on a link to one of the firewall sites, the tab opens as it is trying to get a response from the server, and during the time it takes the server to respond, you see the about:blank. If I could actually see what you are seeing I might be able to help better.

But as your scans turned up no problems, I would not worry to much about it.

[liz1954]

Hoov, thank you for your response. Yes, I am using ie8. Step by step. I go to the freeware links. I choose firewall (btw, this happened also with Ubuntu link). Now there are one of two things I do, when I click on the underlined link it will open a new window with about:blank in the address bar and blank page on the page tab, seconds later the website appears, however, when I right click and select open in a new tab, no hesitation, no blank page. Let me know if any further clarification is needed. I will take your suggestion and not worry. Thanks, again, Liz.