Suggestion: Add an option to open diverted tabs in the background

Copper Contributor

When clicking on hyperlinks that open in a new tab (because the link's target attribute is _blank), the tabs open in the foreground. Please add an option to load them in the background instead.

5 Replies

Hi@hwithk 

There are options to do that. just press Middle Mouse button or Right-click and choose open in a new tab. that way Edge never switched to that link automatically and they are loaded in the background.

 

Try it yourself here: https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_a_target.asp

I am aware of those options. Is there a way to make that the default when single-clicking on links? Something like Firefox's browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground setting, which is accessible via about:config

@hwithk 

Spoiler

@hwithk wrote:

I am aware of those options. Is there a way to make that the default when single-clicking on links? Something like Firefox's browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground setting, which is accessible via about:config




No I don't think so.

it's something website developers have control over, I don't see why browsers should intervene. they use target="_blank" for a reason. if they don't want their users to open links in different tab, they can just drop that attribute.

fortunately browsers like Edge have plenty options for this.

there are already not 2 but 3 ways (1 that I forgot to mention) to handle the situation:

 

  1. Middle Mouse Button click on links (single click)
  2. Right-click and select open in new tab
  3. hold CTRL and left-click (normal click) on links
Also take a look at this extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-link-in-same-tab-pop/jmphljmgnagblkombahigniilhnbadca

before installing it, clicking on the link above in my post to the w3school website would open in a new tab when i clicked on it.
after installing the extension, that link opens in the same tab.

@HotCakeX That's not the desired behavior he described; target="_blank" has nothing to do with it. It is BROWSER behavior that Firefox makes available.

 

Those of us who have fired Mozilla for various reasons would prefer not to have to go back to Firefox because Microsoft Edge developers can't be bothered to understand option requests.