What is About Blank Page? Should You Remove it?

When you open your browser a blank screen pops up. That is called About blank. It has no Uniform Resource Locator (URL) written on the tab. In short, an empty page with no address is called about blank. Even on the title, about blank in written. It is quite famous in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, and other browsers.

Most answers use about blank instead of a homepage. It is a blank page that shows nothing so you can insert your desired URL and continue with the work. It may prevent you from opening a lot of tabs after opening any browser. You can set it by selecting the option from the top right corner of your browser. You can write any URL or about blank, Google chrome introduces about: dino where a famous dinosaur game appears. We all played that game when the internet crashes or any other problem occurs. That is a small example of blank pages on browsers.

How to activate about:blank on any browser

To activate this on your browser is not a big deal. Most browsers use this already or settings are in-built for about blank already. This is not malware or virus most people consider it usually. It is just an empty tab with no URLs on it.

Uses of About Blank

If you think that blank is useless then you might be wrong. There are various reasons browsers choose to keep this on their homepage. The reasons behind making a blank page appear are countless. Here are a few benefits we are discussing below.

1. Ensures Privacy: This feature will make sure that the privacy of users is not compromised. They will keep the search history or even the last active session is hidden from any outside party.
2. Regulating Bandwidth speed: If your internet speed is slow or disturbed. This feature helps a lot in making it normal. Before opening any website o address, this page will regulate bandwidth speed and after a few seconds when the internet is stable, you can enjoy seamless speed on any URL easily. It does not need the internet to open but after that, it may regulate the speed effectively.
3. Prevents a lot of tabs to open in one instance: It will stop unnecessary load on your internet as well. It will give you a blank space to open any tab or website you want to open.
4. Make homepage blank: Some people like their homepages clear and clean. They do not as any tab or history pops up when they open the browser. So for this purpose, a lot of users use this page for their homepages.
5. Less distractive: Now if you are a student or professional person. Keeping other options on the homepage may distract you from your work. That may waste a lot of time and energy. So to prevent any wastage of internet speed or time, people use this page for startups.
6. A tool for older PCs: We all know that old computers or systems were rather slow than now. So setting a homepage other than blank makes the experience much slower and annoying. So users keep this their homepage for a better experience.
7. Fresh and clean startup: This is the most common use that people set a blank page as their homepages. They want to keep their search and history fresh and new, so by setting this as an opening page, they never saw the previous session or opened tabs. This satisfies them as a user or professional mechanism.

Why blank page pops up

Sometimes you enter the address and a blank page keeps popping up again and again. It may make you think that your system is under virus attack or crashed. But this serves a lot of reasons due to which it is occurring.

1. You might enter the wrong address or website on the tab. Or maybe the system cannot recognise or reach the address you have entered.
2. The site you entered might have any virus or malware in it. So it may be built a wall and send a message that continuing might cause problems in your system.
3. Sometimes browser files are missing or damaged from an existing virus, malware, or adware infection. So it might not react more effectively than before.
4. About blank is not a virus or malware, instead, it prevents you from getting one online or due to an internal system.

So of About blank is coming, again and again, your system might have a few third-party problems or your command is incorrect. This is itself not a threat.

How to remove about blank from browsers

If you do not like this blank page to be your homepage, the procedure is so simple and convenient. If you want to remove this from Google chrome, follow the following steps and your homepage will be as per your desire.

1. Open your Google chrome tab
2. Click on the top right corner where three dots are placed
3. Go to “settings”
4. Remove about blank your default homepage and write your desire search engine or website you want to keep as a homepage.
5. Click on save and done
6. And that’s it; about blank is disabling from your browser.
7. 

From Mozilla Firefox

Here are the steps to remove about blank from this browser.

1. Open your browser
2. On the top right corner, three lines are placed. Click on those lines, multiple options will appear.
3. Go to “new window and tabs”
4. On the custom homepage and URL option, remove about blank from the dialogue box and type your desired website in it, e.g. Google.com

Press done and that’s it, about black is gone from your homepage.

Almost same methods will be applied on Microsoft edge, apple safari and even on internet explorer browser. Keeping it as a homepage is not threat despite of a lot of rumours. It has no disadvantage but might keeps few perks like privacy, safety and prevention etc. We have given a whole guideline about about blank in this article.