Create shortcut to about:blank in Chrome home screen (or other custom shortcuts)

Question

In Google Chrome we have an option to create shortcuts on the home screen (the content that appears upon creating a new tab).

I want to create a shortcut to about:blank which normally is a valid URI (to a blank page). But when I try to do it Chrome doesn't allow me and has a message "Enter a valid URL"

Is there a way to create such a shortcut, or generally shortcuts that may not be considered canonical?

Answer 1

You can create a shortcut like this by going to the Desktop, right clicking and choosing new>shortcut as usual typing "[URL to your browser] -new-window [special page], so in your case it might be:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -new-window about:blank 

You can also do this for other browsers and other pages (e.g. the about:preferences on FireFox).