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about.blank
My WinPatrol is continuously displaying a message that a
change has been detected in my IE start up page, and the new page is "about.blank". What is causing this and how do I get rid of it? |
#2
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about.blank
There are two or more home page hijackers (parasites) that alter the file used
by those who like to launch Internet Explorer with a blank "homepage" rather than always opening a site such as their ISP's portal or Google. One of these parasites is a variant of the CoolWebSearch parasite. For details of the CWS.Aboutblank variant see (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/c...tml#aboutblank). Unfortunately there is a more cent variation of this hijacker which cannot be removed by CWShredder (see below) and if this is the case your only resort will be to follow the advice in the last paragraph. Download and run CWShredder (http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip or http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip) which is the best way of getting rid of the many forms of the CoolWebSearch hijacker details of which can be found at http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html and also http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/c/cws.asp.. There is also another newer variant aboutblank parasite which is particularly resistant to removal. For details of this second variant and possible help see recent posts by Mow Green in various threads at http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 such as that initiated by JENNY entitled "Blank page is BACK! (http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=6437). You will need to download for later use the tool about:Buster from either http://www.atribune.org/downloads/AboutBuster.zip or http://tools.zerosrealm.com/AboutBuster.zip This would be a good time to download yourself a copy of the free Ad-Aware 6.0 from Lavasoft (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) and also SpyBot Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/) and use them to check your system for other commercial parasites remembering that they are only as good as when you last updated their reference files. I also use a program called BHODemon (http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm that checks for unwanted Browser Help Objects and SpywareBlaster (http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html) which can help prevent many parasites getting a grip on your PC. Finally if you still continue to experience problems download a copy of HijackThis from (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html). Create a folder called HJT on C: and copy the file you downloaded to that folder. Close as many applications as you can including all instances of Internet Explorer and then run hijackthis.exe and post as a new thread to the HijackThis Forum at http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ or alternatively http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 and hopefully this will enable someone to identify the cause of your problem. --? Mike Maltby MS-MVP wrote: My WinPatrol is continuously displaying a message that a change has been detected in my IE start up page, and the new page is "about.blank". What is causing this and how do I get rid of it? |
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