If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
"About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now.
Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
"Barry Bruyea" wrote in message
... "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. Remove Adware & PUPs with these tools. Check for updates first and then scan with each one at a time. AdwCleaner (Free) http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ MBAM (Get the free version) https://www.malwarebytes.org/free/ Junkware Removal Tool (Free) http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/down...-removal-tool/ HitmanPro (30 day free trial) http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro If necessary, reset your browsers. For IE: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...lorer-settings |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On 12 Jun 2014, Barry Bruyea wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. You give precious little detail. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894269 https://www.google.com/search?q=about+blank |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
Barry Bruyea wrote on 2014/06/12:
"About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. Based on the near complete lack of any details in your post, here's my guess ... How about changing the home page in your unidentified web browser? |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
VanguardLH wrote:
Barry Bruyea wrote on 2014/06/12: "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. Based on the near complete lack of any details in your post, here's my guess ... How about changing the home page in your unidentified web browser? A Google says "About Blank (PUP) is a variant of Cool Web Search." It's a browser hijacker. And the stuff I've read so far, isn't that encouraging, so I'll stop right there. It's not Sality, but it's not easy to remove either. Perhaps it will require some guided help at Bleepingcomputer.com . HTH, Paul |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:50:41 -0700, "Bruce Hagen"
wrote: Remove Adware & PUPs with these tools. Check for updates first and then scan with each one at a time. I see PUPs mentioned on Bleepingcomputer too, but they dont say what it means. What is it? Or what do the letters stand for? |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:50:41 -0700, "Bruce Hagen" wrote: Remove Adware & PUPs with these tools. Check for updates first and then scan with each one at a time. I see PUPs mentioned on Bleepingcomputer too, but they dont say what it means. What is it? Or what do the letters stand for? Potentially Unwanted Program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware "Grayware Another term, PUP, which stands for Potentially Unwanted Program (or PUA Potentially Unwanted Application), refers to applications that would be considered unwanted despite having been downloaded by the user (users may fail to read a download agreement). PUPs include spyware, adware, and dialers. " They use terminology like that, for legal reasons. Some of the PUP companies are litigious. So rather than an AV company calling their software "malware", which is what an end-user would call it, they "fluff up the name" and call it a PUP instead. That way, the lawyers won't sue them. We're still waiting to find people who actually *want* the PUP :-) I'm sure you've seen the screenshot, of a browser with too many toolbars on top... PUPs FTW. http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.6080...50701&pid=15.1 HTH, Paul |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:31:08 -0400, Paul wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Barry Bruyea wrote on 2014/06/12: "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. Based on the near complete lack of any details in your post, here's my guess ... How about changing the home page in your unidentified web browser? A Google says "About Blank (PUP) is a variant of Cool Web Search." It's a browser hijacker. And the stuff I've read so far, isn't that encouraging, so I'll stop right there. It's not Sality, but it's not easy to remove either. Perhaps it will require some guided help at Bleepingcomputer.com . HTH, Paul For many years, first with IE, then Firefox, now Chrome, I've had my home page set to about:blank - I just happen to prefer my browser to start with a blank page. Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the problem with the about:blank being discussed in this thread? |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
Davidm wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:31:08 -0400, Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Barry Bruyea wrote on 2014/06/12: "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. Based on the near complete lack of any details in your post, here's my guess ... How about changing the home page in your unidentified web browser? A Google says "About Blank (PUP) is a variant of Cool Web Search." It's a browser hijacker. And the stuff I've read so far, isn't that encouraging, so I'll stop right there. It's not Sality, but it's not easy to remove either. Perhaps it will require some guided help at Bleepingcomputer.com . HTH, Paul For many years, first with IE, then Firefox, now Chrome, I've had my home page set to about:blank - I just happen to prefer my browser to start with a blank page. Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the problem with the about:blank being discussed in this thread? I do not deny the existence of "about:blank" as a URL and a feature of Firefox. As far as I know, "about:blank" doesn't work as such on Internet Explorer. I take it the OP has classified this by the browser behavior involved. And not by accidentally selecting a blank page as the home page in IE, or using "about:blank" in Firefox. And the people who write this stuff, probably can't stop laughing their asses off, at the confusion they cause. This is apparently a PUP, but with above-average tenacity, which is why I can't expect one pass of this to help. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ Paul |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On Fri, 13 Jun 2014 04:08:51 -0400, Paul wrote:
I'm sure you've seen the screenshot, of a browser with too many toolbars on top... PUPs FTW. http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.6080...50701&pid=15.1 That's almost funny. It must take a half hour just to load that browser with all those toolbars..... I wont allow even one toolbar. Dont want them. Not even the legitimate ones (if there are any which are truly legitimate these days). |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On 6/13/2014 10:45 AM, Paul wrote:
I do not deny the existence of "about:blank" as a URL and a feature of Firefox. As far as I know, "about:blank" doesn't work as such on Internet Explorer. It works just fine under IE9 and I believe other IE versions as well. In fact, if you go into Internet Tools and tell it to start up with a blank page, it inserts to use "about:blank" in the URL field. It also works with Maxthon v3. Maxthon can also use "about:last". Tried this under Firefox v23 and IE9 and they don't support "about:last". What this does is to popup the last opened tabs when it was closed last. You can reopen all, some, or none of them. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0 Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1 |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On 13 Jun 2014, Davidm wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: For many years, first with IE, then Firefox, now Chrome, I've had my home page set to about:blank - I just happen to prefer my browser to start with a blank page. Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the problem with the about:blank being discussed in this thread? The OP seems to be referring to some malware that has been installed and is messing up his browser. However has expressed his question in such a vague way that we can't tell for certain. Maybe he'll be back to clarify things, but I'm not counting on it. |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
Paul wrote:
I do not deny the existence of "about:blank" as a URL and a feature of Firefox. As far as I know, "about:blank" doesn't work as such on Internet Explorer. about:blank has worked in IE since version 6. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_U...ic_about:_URIs Netscape started it but other web browsers took it up. They don't support all the same directives specified after "about:" because they have differing feature sets. I take it the OP has classified this by the browser behavior involved. And not by accidentally selecting a blank page as the home page in IE, or using "about:blank" in Firefox. And the people who write this stuff, probably can't stop laughing their asses off, at the confusion they cause. This is apparently a PUP, but with above-average tenacity, which is why I can't expect one pass of this to help. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ The others that I've seen recommended for this crap a Junk Removal Tool (JRT) Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (free unless you want to pay for their on-access scanner) See: http://www.ehow.com/about_6527033_bl...s-removal.html The problem is that after eradication of the virus the user still has to undo the changes made by the virus. AV or cleaner programs may disinfect but the changes the virus made could also be changes the user made, so resetting the changes to the defaults could end up changing settings the user made whether they had the virus or not. I've run into this with MalwareBytes where they identify a changed setting as a possible fingerprint of malware but it was a setting that *I* changed. Seems the recommendation is to scan with a decent AV program. The OP never mention what AV progoram he uses. If he's using Clam Antivirus (or those using Clam as the engine; e.g., Immunet), for example, he might as well uninstall it and leave his host open. As for Spybot, I haven't trusted that product for many years to catch anything. The virus came from something the OP decided to install. Something shiny caught his eye, was free, and he downloaded and installed it. If he can remember when he did that, he might have a restore point he could use with System Restore to get rid of the registrations, BHOs, and other crap (other than files) that the virus changed. Since About Blank is a variant (polymorph) of CoolWebSearch, perhaps the CWShredder tool might work. Last I remember, Trend Micro acquired it from the original author (Merijn). I can't find CWShredder at Trend, like at http://www.trendmicro.com/us/securit...ts/#free-tools, but it has a May 5 upload date at Softpedia so it's not too old (i.e., it's been updated in about the last month). http://www.softpedia.com/get/Interne...Shredder.shtml |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 16:07:30 -0400, Nil
wrote: On 12 Jun 2014, Barry Bruyea wrote in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: "About Blank". This web page has been plaguing me for a week now. Anyone know how the hell to get rid of it? I've run anti-virus and Spybot and they don't 'see' it. You give precious little detail. Well I probably have the same thing and I've had it for a year or more, I think I use Firefox, and often, I just click on a proper place to click on one or another url (I haven't noticed a pattern yet) and up pops a browser box, (a Window, but without the command bar, tool bar, etc), not full screen, labeled about: Blank. If I wait long enough some advertisement will start to fill the box, with a URL that starts with one of those famous advertising url nodes, (I forget how they start) But normally, without even rushing, I can X Close the box and that's the end of it for a few days. So I havent' been annoyed enough to post here, but I'd be happy if you all had an answer specific to this so I could get rid of it too. No other unwanted Windows pop up. I don't think this is related, except to show how few pop-ups I get, other than the one above: Once in a while I get a yellow? bar across the top of the window that says a window is trying to pop up and what do I want to do with it. If I click on the far right, it gives choices to make an exception for the current webpage, to NOT allow it, and maybe a 3rd choice. It doesn't have the choice I want, which is to make an exception for this webpage THIS TIME. , but I sometimes say make and exceptoin for the webpage and I havent' regretted that yet. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894269 https://www.google.com/search?q=about+blank |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
How Do You Get Rid of "About.Blank"
On Fri, 13 Jun 2014 15:37:51 -0400, Nil
wrote: On 13 Jun 2014, Davidm wrote in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: For many years, first with IE, then Firefox, now Chrome, I've had my home page set to about:blank - I just happen to prefer my browser to start with a blank page. Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the problem with the about:blank being discussed in this thread? The OP seems to be referring to some malware that has been installed and is messing up his browser. However has expressed his question in such a vague way that we can't tell for certain. Maybe he'll be back to clarify things, but I'm not counting on it. I wonder where all these people go. Does someone read Usenet and kidnap people who ask strange questions. Are they holding them for ransom? What is the ransom required? I'd be glad to chip into a fund, because I know I ask strange questions, and I might need redeeming some day. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|