External links in new tab

February 12, 2003 7:54 AM

Would it be possible to have external links open in a new tab in my browser, instead of a new window or the same window? I don't know if this feature is available outside of Mozilla/Netscape, but it would save me a lot of right-clicking. Or am I the only one who uses tabbed browsing?
posted by Johnny Assay to Feature Requests at 7:54 AM (15 comments total)

There is no way to program this in Netscape/Mozilla. The engineers and programming teams have been asked for this feature and declined to ever do it (something about not wanting to add proprietary (illegal to the HTML spec) code to mozilla).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:57 AM on February 12, 2003

middle click on links (i believe this might be configurable in mozilla - not at home to check - but the default opens in a new tab).
posted by andrew cooke at 9:01 AM on February 12, 2003

Wouldn't the annoyance of EVERYTHING opening in a new tab versus your conscious choice outweigh any perceived efficiency in browsing prowess.
posted by machaus at 9:01 AM on February 12, 2003

?
posted by machaus at 9:01 AM on February 12, 2003

middle click on links (i believe this might be configurable in mozilla - not at home to check - but the default opens in a new tab).

you may have to set up mozilla do obey this command before it'll work, but yes. i just click down the middle button (or rather, the scroll wheel) to open new links. it works well for me, and i'm used to it. go into edit/preferences, choose navigator/tabbed browsing, and check the option that states "Middle-click or control-click of links in a page" which is under the "Open tabs instead of windows" heading.
posted by moz at 9:17 AM on February 12, 2003

There's also a tabbed browsing extension (available here) that gives you much more control over the browser tabs. You can do all kinds of wonderful things such as tab reordering, focusing, overriding javascript that opens things in new windows (opening them in tabs instead), etc etc.
posted by kelperoni at 9:29 AM on February 12, 2003

Off topic, but anybody know if it's possible to set Moz to allow unrequested windows to pop only for selected sites or domains? I'm imagining something like IE's security zones.

Replying to e-mails in Outlook Web Access does something that makes the reply message window pop as an unrequested window, and I get pretty tired of changing my preferences every time I need to reply to an e-mail or notice that I got some pop-up ad from some site.
posted by willnot at 9:35 AM on February 12, 2003

willnot, you might look at privoxy. it's not exactly a lightweight solution (you run it on your machine as a proxy and the browser makes connections through it to other sites), but i think it might do what you want. i use it just to drop adverts and the like (for some reason it worked better for me with mozilla than ie).
posted by andrew cooke at 10:00 AM on February 12, 2003

Multizilla will allow you to refine what opens in a new tab versus what opens in a new window. With or without it, you should be able to force CTRL+click and middle-click to open tabs instead of new windows through Edit: Preferences. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a way to make MeFi's links open in a new tab without the CTRL or middle-click, but I imagine there's a plugin out there.

willnot, you might take a look at Quickprefs (it's part of Multizilla but available stand-alone), which allows for image and cookie blocking, JavaScript control, etc. on a domain name basis.

CSS ad-blocking may be of interest to any Moz user.
posted by yerfatma at 10:13 AM on February 12, 2003

If you're looking for the middle click/ctrl+click method of tabbing, you don't need MultiZilla and can just use the Edit:preference options that comes with the normal version of whatever mozilla based product you use.
posted by jmd82 at 10:17 AM on February 12, 2003

willnot: phoenix has the feature you mention built-in ( version .5), and the phoenix project as a whole seems to be coming along nicely.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 1:52 PM on February 12, 2003

Opera, people!

If I understand each of the above-mentioned concerns, it addresses all of them.
posted by jaronson at 3:33 PM on February 12, 2003

jaronson: yup, beat me to it. Go Opera! The MDI interface seemed really clunky to me at first and I never used it, but I've gradually come to realize it's Great Power and Wisdom.
posted by freebird at 5:05 PM on February 12, 2003

I've gotta second this. Opera is an amazing browser!

SMALL PRINT: The above statement is only true if you disregard all other known Web browsers.
posted by wackybrit at 5:09 PM on February 12, 2003

Avant browser is a wrapper for the IE dlls, and gives you tabbed browsing and groups, amongst other neat things. I like it. At 700k for the download, you can't go wrong!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:44 PM on February 12, 2003