You are in all likelihood quite familiar along with your browser’s address bar, that textual content box that incorporates the url of the internet site page you are on in the intervening time, however you may have been surprised to look about:clean there in preference to a actual web page cope with.
Common experience probably already helped make it apparent that the clean part of approximately:clean is honestly associated with the reality that you’re searching at a very clean page in your internet browser.
You may give it a attempt your self right now. Simply open up some other browser tab or window and kind the subsequent exactly, and then click on or faucet enter:
about:blank
No spaces, no http or www – simply the two words with a colon within the middle. A clean web page need to “load” straight away.
Smooth sufficient… However what is the factor?
Why do browsers have an about:clean web page?
Technically talking, the browsers that do have an approximately:blank web page have one because it’s an protected a part of the approximately uri scheme, a quasi-preferred set of rules for managing internal commands that the browser has selected to enforce.
In different words, about:blank is just one in every of several about:[command] alternatives available in the approximately collection, every of which may be used to execute a particular feature within the browser itself. Prefacing the command with about makes it clean to the browser that you need to perform a little neighborhood, internal component, not visit an real web web page.
Executing about:blank in pretty much any browser, like chrome, firefox, facet, or safari, and even cellular browsers, will display a clean web page. It is clearly the only approximately command that is properly supported across all browsers.
Some different common ones include approximately:about, which lists all of the commands to be had or more approximately the browser, about:plugins, which show plugin and upload-on content that is installed, and approximately:cache, which shows information approximately what is saved in the cache.
Most browsers will translate these about instructions into greater custom inner urls however as some distance as we recognize, that never occurs with about:blank.
Why could you ever use about:blank?
It looks like such a useless feature – loading a clean page – but it is probably the maximum typically used about command in a browser, and for excellent cause.
One very common purpose to use about:blank is as your property web page. The home web page acts a starting point for your surfing and whilst every now and then a seek engine, webmail web page, or information site is a outstanding vicinity to start, even the slight power consumer will soon discover that the same web page loading over and over again as new browser windows want opened can end up very annoying.
Commencing a brand new window and having the web page load instantly, due to the fact it is clean, gives you extra freedom to decide what you’re doing with it this time.
A blank domestic web page via approximately:clean is also useful if you’re on a low bandwidth or pay-for-use (metered) connection. It saves high-quality time, and frequently cash, in these conditions because an internet page that won’t always be used is not loaded automatically over and over again each time the browser opens.
See our a way to set a domestic web page in windows and the way to set a home web page on a mac tutorials if you’re interested by converting yours to about:clean.
Is ready:blank malware?
No, truely now not. Seeing about:blank on your net browser does not always mean there may be anything amiss.
That said, seeing it as your house page while you didn’t set it as that, or seeing it all of the time while you supposed to visit other real web sites, can suggest something is incorrect and it is able to imply malware is or changed into involved in some way.
While malware is involved with the approximately:blank web page, there are often different symptoms that factor to it, like random text set up as links on websites you visit, fake virus pop-up messages, and different bizarre software established in your computer that you do not take into account putting there.
At worst, an sudden approximately:clean domestic page is a symptom of a problem or a consequence of a malware smooth-up. If you may, simply exchange the home web page back to what you had it as. If that does not paintings, or you have another purpose to consider your laptop is probably infected, do a entire test for viruses and other malware.