On a Google results page, there are often a few results above the main set of results, like the top three here. If I click on those, I usually get a blank page, with ‘done’ in the bottom left hand corner, ‘about:blank’ in the address bar, and ‘(Untitled)’ on the tab. If I use Opera, for example, they display perfectly. There’s obviously some setting in Firefox that is preventing these pages from displaying, but I can’t find it. This has been happening for some time.
I had something installed that blocked all the Google sponsored links pages like described. I had done it to myself on purpose, but I don’t know if it was through the Adblock plugin. You should list your plugins like has been requested.
Depending on what you searched for it could be the antiPhishing feature of firefox, your I.P. look up host, or antivirus. This would be specific to Firefox and it’s plugins if the same search on IE didn’t give you blank pages. Try the same search with IE and tell us if it still happens.
Thank you: yes, it is adblocker. I’d forgotten about that. But it seems to be rather all-or-nothing. Is there a way to allow it to show sponsored links but not ads that randomly show on web pages?
Yes, although how to do it may be different depending on which version of adblock you have. The version I have puts a stop sign icon in the upper right corner of firefox. If this is what you have, right clicking on that while you’re on a page will give you the option to disable adblock for that one page, or for all pages from that domain. If that doesn’t work, open the tools menu, click on add ons, then click on the options button below your ad block extension. You will probably be able to add an exception through there.