Lately when I select a link with my web browser, I get a pop-up page that is blank. The title on the web page is always the same:
about:blank
Can anyone tell me what is going on here? it’s annoying enough to get pop-ups with advertisements. Now I’m getting these screwy things.
Thanks for your help.
Max
oh, and just for the techies out there, this happens with Internet Explorer, Netscape, and the POS that AOL uses.
The title “about:blank” is innocuous enough. It’s just your browser’s way of saying that you’re not looking at any webpage, just a blank page. It is curious that you have blank pages popping up, though. You could have a pop-up program running on your computer. Do you know how to check for that? Also, does this happen with every link you select?
Achernar,
It doesn’t happen all of the time, but I’d say 75%. It occurs when I select links, or if I select something from AOL’s standard menus. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern as far as I can tell.
I also looked at the processes running on my computer. System idle is at 99%. I don’t see anything that jumps out at me, but that doesn’t mean my machine isn’t infected with some virus that has a generic-sounding name.
Max
I hate the things too. Mostly if I can get a web address or ip from this popup I add it to my firewall just in case. Also you can get a popup killer from download.com that should help on stopping some of those nasty buggers from appearing
It’s probably a pop-up ad that hasn’t loaded the page information yet. If you wait long enough, does an ad eventually show up? I usually kill them off before the ads arrive.
About:blank is just a blank page. In fact, I have it set as my homepage on IE so that I don’t have to wait for a site to load whenever I open it. It’s just blank. However, I guess it could manifest itself on a failed popup ad, but it’s nothing to worry about.
it’s probably just a blank or messed up link coded into the popups of the sites you visit. use a pop up killer if you are concerned.
fun things to do with about:
about:mozilla
in IE it gives you a blue screen, in Netscape it gives you a quote…
Was wondering about this, too. Thanks for info.
I get pages like this occasionally, usually when I visit a site that uses popups (tripod, I think, and others). I have javascript disabled, and I have many ad sites blocked in my windows “hosts” file. My guess is that the window pops up but can’t display anything, which is fine by me.
I’ll second Achernar’s concerns. It’s worrying that you’re getting popups that frequently, and I think you shouldn’t be getting them at all from AOL menus unless they’ve gotten completely ridiculous or some AOL hacker has gotten to you somehow. You could check with AOL’s tech support or search the web or usenet for “AOL popups”.
Good luck.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Perhaps it is as simple as having java disabled (which I do.) But how does that explain the behavior with AOL? Also, it doesn’t stop me from getting pop-up ads. I’m still getting these also.
Another weird thing has manifested itself. If I use AOL’s browser, I cannot load a page. However, if I use IE, the page loads as expected. I wonder if AOL has somehow been corrupted?
Max
I get these, too, but only when I go to a page within the about.com site. Probably an advertising window error.