what is, aboutblank ? Internet explorer browser

Hello jaehall2,
 
Welcome to the Community Forum,
 
From my research I findthat this Browser hijacking is one of the most widespread infection. The purpose of hijacker is to force people into visiting unwanted websites. Changed homepage of a web browser is the most obvious and the most common symptom of residing browser hijacker.  It modifies the homepage and it keeps changing it to the same predefined address if user attempts to change it into some regular website.
 
Would you issue a Support Ticket free of charge so they can clean this up for you?
 
 
Please let us knwo how things are going for this will helpo others!
 
Thanks,
Kind Regards
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Sherry
 
If I may I would offer an alternative explanation to the quesation posed, and thereby seek clarification from jaehall2 as to the reason for the enquiry.
 
If you check this wikipedia article on about:blank you will see that far from being malware related it is in fact quite legitimate, the purpose of which is to display a blank HTML document. It's supported by most browsers and from my research I note that it has a lot of advantages, such as:

- browser loads much faster
- works even if you don't have an Internet connection
- is not distracting so you can continue your work
- you are free to decide where to go, without letting others decide for you
- if you open a new window, some browsers (for example, Internet Explorer) load the homepage
- etc.
 
and in fact I believe that it has been recommended by @ in a thread (which I cannot now find...grrrrr).
 
Now that is not to say that what you have found is not also correct (what legitimate options are not copied for nefarious purposes by those on the Dark Side, eh?)
 
So, jaehall2, I think that to determne which is the correct response to your circumstances we need to know why you are asking.
 
Regards, Baldrick 

thanks, Sherry. your input was helpful. I have issued a support ticket. and I am waiting for a response.

Hello jaehali2,
 
Just to be sure did you read the post by Baldrick?
 
Please do let us know the outcome if you would.
 
 
Kind Regards,

Hi, Baldrick. I am asking because when try to browse on internet explorer, About blank, just pops up as the https. And I had no idea what it implied or it's intention.

I believe it is aboutblank because you have not assign an automatic homepage to come up when you are signing in.
 

about:blank is the default page in IE if you dont have a website set as your homepage. 

If I may join in and contribute here...
 
about:blank is a valid setting for browsers to present you with a homepage that is blank.  It allows you to decide when to connect to the internet and where you wish to land.  This is my preferred setting so that my browser does not attempt to access the internet to automatically land on Google, Microsoft, or any other site. 
 
Is it a problem?  Never say Never!  If you do not reset your browser to use about:blank but it suddenly it is reset, it could mean trouble.
 
Microsoft explains what happens in the case of this occurring on XP or Windows Server 2003 and the cause was a Banking Trojan, in this article:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894269/en-us
 
I have also read of instances where a sudden reset of your homepage to about:blank is due to a browser hi-jacker.
 
So the moral of the story is about:blank is a good thing if you intentionally set it as  your homepage but possibly not so good if it happens on its own and takes over a previously set homepage..
 
Regards,
Dave