Hi dkwi2016, welcome to Firefox.

Firefox doesn't have any setting for "normal" links that diverts them to a new window or new tab. All normal links open in the same tab. Firefox DOES have settings for what to do when a link is coded to open in a new window. By default, that link is diverted to a new tab instead.* That might be the setting you turned off on the Options page.

To launch a normal link in a new tab, you can use one of these methods:

• hold down the Ctrl key while clicking the link
• right-click the link, then Open Link in New Tab
• middle-click the link with the mouse scroll wheel

Does that make sense?

* Firefox still pops a window if the site has specified features such as the window size, since dialogs can be hard to use in a tab. There is a hidden setting to override this if needed.

There is an update available for your Firefox. It might happen automatically, but you also can trigger it using the "About Firefox" dialog, as described in this article: Update Firefox to the latest release.

This is what I did to change everything from opening in different tabs:

    In the Location bar, type about:config and press Enter. The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear.
   Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
   At the Search area type(or copy/paste the next) browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction then, double-click on it and change the value to 0 (zero)
   click OK. 

Do the same with the : browser.link.open_newwindow and change the value to 1 (one)

Is there something I can change 'back' that will open email links and Facebook links in a separate tab automatically?

You can middle-click a link or hold Ctrl and left-click to open the link in a new tab.

Okay, if you are going into about:config, there are three settings:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste link.o and pause while the list is filtered.

(3) There are three similarly named preferences for different scenarios, we're going to focus on the second one, but I mention the others in case you have a question when you see them:

(A) browser.link.open_newwindow - for links in Firefox tabs

3 = divert new window to a new tab (default) 2 = allow link to open a new window 1 = force new window into same tab <= your setting

(B) browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction - for links in Firefox tabs - change this from 2 to 0 (zero)

0 = apply the setting under (A) to ALL new windows <= your setting 2 = apply the setting under (A) to normal windows, but NOT to script windows with features (default) 1 = override the setting under (A) and always use new windows

(C) browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external - for links in other programs

-1 = apply the setting under (A) to external links (default) 3 = open external links in a new tab in the last active window 2 = open external links in a new window 1 = open external links in the last active tab replacing the current page

Firefox targets new windows, which can be generated by:

(1) Link target attribute (e.g., target="_blank") (2) window.open script method

It is not content-specific, it's content-neutral.

Do any of the methods of directing links to a new tab still work with those settings?

If you want to automate that, maybe an add-on could detect the script destination and launch it in a new window/tab.

I'm sure that the OP is aware of how these browser.link.open_newwindow prefs work. The point is that the currently used setting (browser.link.open_newwindow = 1) open all links that specify a target in the same tab and the OP wants to override this automatically for email and Facebook. I'm not aware of an extension that would support this feature and this would be a very rare use case.

Ugh, this stupid setting just made me lose my reply!!

Well, here is the punch line:

(1) If there is no full-fledged add-on for this, the Greasemonkey method GM_openInTab bypasses the internal setting, so someone could create a userscript for this.

(2) Here are two sites where users often request custom Greasemonkey userscripts, you could try one of these:

• Greasyfork: https://greasyfork.org/en/forum/categories/script-requests
• OpenUserJS: https://openuserjs.org/corner