Can Someone Help with About:Blank

I've been on the internet searching for information about "About:Blank" which is on both my desktop and laptop. I have WinXP on the Dell 4500 and WinVista on the HP laptop. NIS2010 on both and updated daily. I've never seen About:Blank listed by NIS as a problem. It is listed as the only entry on my IE8 Internet Tools General Page under Use Blank. I see it slowing down the loading process on my home page and other pages, even Microsoft Update.

I can't see where it is doing anything particularly, but some say it's malware and substitutes ads. I'm really tired of waiting for About:Blank.

 

Can someone help with this? Should I try to get rid of it? I can't tell where I picked it up and it may return. And, why isn't NIS catching it? Appreciate your help.

I've been on the internet searching for information about "About:Blank" which is on both my desktop and laptop. I have WinXP on the Dell 4500 and WinVista on the HP laptop. NIS2010 on both and updated daily. I've never seen About:Blank listed by NIS as a problem. It is listed as the only entry on my IE8 Internet Tools General Page under Use Blank. I see it slowing down the loading process on my home page and other pages, even Microsoft Update.

I can't see where it is doing anything particularly, but some say it's malware and substitutes ads. I'm really tired of waiting for About:Blank.

 

Can someone help with this? Should I try to get rid of it? I can't tell where I picked it up and it may return. And, why isn't NIS catching it? Appreciate your help.

My homepage is set to www.cnn.com, which is where the IE desktop icon takes me. On occasion, but not always, there is a blank page. Under the Use Blank tab, there is only "About:Blank" which can be erased, but which comes back. It doesn't matter what I set my homepage address to, I will see "waiting for About:Blank" in the bottom left address bar along with waiting for other ad company cookies to load. This is an every day event. It's the About:Blank that I'm worried about since many tech websites state it is malware and is difficult to remove, requiring HijackThis and other software and tedious removal procedures.

 

I just had to completely restore my WinXP system after trying to update AdAware and got some horrible something that took control of the computer, knocked out my administrator status, and NIS found nothing. So, I'm leary about adding software to fix this thing. About:Blank was the reason I was trying to update AdAware. It was on the computer before and after the complete restore. Don't know where I'm getting it. Other ideas?

Hi DUKEVU,

 

There is a browser hijacker called About:Blank.  If you were infected your homepage would be changed to something not of your choosing.  But "About:Blank" is also a URI scheme that is used to display any blank HTML page.  That is why the setting for a blank homepage in Internet Explorer is labled "Use Blank" and the URL will display as "About:Blank."  (I actually have my IE set to About:Blank as my homepage).

 

Whenever a site needs your browser to render a  blank page or document you will see About:Blank displayed, if only temporarily while that part, often an iframe, loads.  In the absence of any unruly behavior on the part of your browser, it is likely that you are seeing this ubiquitous instruction, rather than the malware that just happens to share the same name.  The references to About:Blank that you are seeing sound like they are entirely legitimate.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About:_URI_scheme

 

 

Well that makes sense. I think I'll quit worrying about it unless I see more problems. The time I've spent recovering my system and reading about About:Blank is unbelievable. It is confusing since one instance of A:B is generally normal while the other is infectious. I appreciate everyone's quick assistance.  

Hello DUKEVU

 

It is also possible that Lavasoft Adware is conflicting with NIS since it does have parts that are running all the time.