IE8 opens blank tabs

AB wrote:

I'm running IE8 on WindowsXP HE SP3. Lately IE will start opening
multiple blank tabs as if stuck in a loop. It keeps doing this till I
abort the application.

Why is it doing this and what can I do to stop it from happening?

Thanks for any suggestions!

AB

Tried testing after loading in its no add-ons mode?

Happens when you visit specific sites?

What did you configure in IE8 to do for handling opening new tabs? What
is IE8 supposed to do to handle opening pop-ups? Open a new tab or open
a new window?

IE7/8 have a pop-up blocker but it isn't perfect in its default
configuration (medium setting). Alas, in its most aggressive setting
(high), it causes some sites not to function properly (been too long to
remember the bad effects but remember that I had to reduce from high
back to medium setting).

To test effectiveness of popup blocking, see http://www.popuptest.com/.
In your case, you don't care about in-page popups appearing (since they
are actually content within the web page that are made to look like
popups). You only want to test for popups that result in creating a new
tab within the same IE window as you described. With my IE8, medium
setting on its popup blocker, the only popups that I see produced at
that test site are those that are fake popups (they are *in* the same
web page). Another popup test site is http://www.popupcheck.com/. In
the past, I used a popup blocker from Edensoft: PopUpCop. Alas, the
author abandoned development on it and the program didn't well support
IE8 (caused crashes) so I had to stop using it. When I did use it, it
blocked more popups than did the popup blocker included within IE7/8.
It got rid of the in-page pseudo-popups.

You might also want to disable meta-refresh (Internet security setting)
as some sites use that to change the content of the page that you
intended to visit; i.e., they redirect you elsewhere. The problem
you'll encounter with disabling meta-refresh is that some sites get
updated and their new web page is elsewhere and they expect to use meta-
refresh to get you to their new web page. Anyone using meta-refresh
should provide a link in the original web page so you can click on it
manually do the redirection (load the other web page); however, many web
page designers forget to test their web site with meta-refresh disabled
and just assume everyone will have it enabled in their web browser. IE,
Firefox, and some others let users configure the web browser NOT to
meta-refresh just because someone wants to push them somewhere else.
Google Chrome doesn't let its users disable meta-refresh so they are
still exposed to this exploit.