Inconsistent behaviour in opening links (sometimes browser, sometimes internally)
Thunderbird 91.7.0 (64-bit), Windows 10. Brand-new profile: Thunderbird just reinstalled after uninstalling previous version and deleting all profiles (in Windows' "Roaming" user folders etc).
For some emails containing links, clicking on the link open in my default system browser: Firefox.
For some emails, instead, clicking on a link opens it in a new Thunderbird tab instead of Firefox.
Example of the first behaviour is an email from Google Scholar. Example of the second is an email from a flight company.
In either case, when I hover over the link with the mouse I see the address "https://..." etc in the status bar.
Expected behaviour: all web links should open in default browser.
Any ideas of why this strange inconsistent behaviour and how to correct it? Cheers!
All Replies (6)
Any links to Thunderbird.net will open in the internal browser tabs, such as addons whats new etc. That is by design.
Hi Matt, the link that's opening in the internal tab is not from Thunderbird.net, it's from www.sas.no The link that opens in Firefox is from www.google.com
One way – a little bothersome – to reproduce the problem is to go to www.sas.no, create an account, and see what happens when one clicks in the confirmation email, or in an email requiring to confirm a change of password.
Have you ever downloaded an addon that offers the option like 'browseintab' or Link in tab' ?
Is the 'link' in an email in a Feed account ?
If feed account:
then try the following...
- Menu app icon > Preferences > General
- Scroll to bottom and click on 'Config Editor'
- In search type: rss
- Locate: rss.message.loadWebPageOnSelect
- If the Value is 0 then change it to 1
Then restart Thunderbird.
Toad-Hall said
If feed account: then try the following...Then restart Thunderbird.
- Menu app icon > Preferences > General
- Scroll to bottom and click on 'Config Editor'
- In search type: rss
- Locate: rss.message.loadWebPageOnSelect
- If the Value is 0 then change it to 1
(I'm not the OP, but I have this problem / requirement too.)
Thanks for the response: however, this doesn't do quite the right thing.
This "loadWebPageOnSelect" preference controls the behaviour when opening a feed item from a feed folder. With that preference set to 1, opening a feed item in Thunderbird opens it both in a Thunderbird tab and in a browser tab.
But when you use the RSS item as opened in the Thunderbird tab, links from that item always open in Thunderbird rather than in the default browser. This behaviour - the opening of links in feed items, as opposed to the opening of feed items themselves - is the issue here.
In TB 78, you could choose how you wanted to open links from feed items based on which mouse button you used:
- Left-click: open in a Thunderbird tab.
- Middle-click: open in default browser.
But in subsequent versions, the middle-click behaviour has disappeared.
You *can* right-click, then choose "Open Link In Browser" from the context menu, but that's much clunkier than a single middle-click.
Is there a way to get that middle-click behaviour back?