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When i open a link in a new tab Firefox switches to it immediately even though i disabled the option

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  • Last reply by Tonnes

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When i middle click a link i would like it to open in a new tab without switching to it. This used to work in previous versions of Firefox and in other browsers. However, it doesn't work for me anymore. I have tried unchecking the "When you open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately" option and it has nor effect. I have also tried toggling browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground to true and it had no effect. I have tried testing it in safe mode and there is no difference.

The only way i found to make it work is to Shift+Ctrl click the link. Just Ctrl+clicking opens the link in a new tab and switches to it, but for some reason Shift+Ctrl clicking opens it without switching to it.

Please help.

When i middle click a link i would like it to open in a new tab without switching to it. This used to work in previous versions of Firefox and in other browsers. However, it doesn't work for me anymore. I have tried unchecking the "When you open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately" option and it has nor effect. I have also tried toggling browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground to true and it had no effect. I have tried testing it in safe mode and there is no difference. The only way i found to make it work is to Shift+Ctrl click the link. Just Ctrl+clicking opens the link in a new tab and switches to it, but for some reason Shift+Ctrl clicking opens it without switching to it. Please help.

Chosen solution

This should still be default behavior (even though you seem to report this for 57 Beta) and if not, an add-on or user.js file may be the culprit.

You could open about:config and press <enter>, type inbackground and make sure all prefs that you see are still set to their default values. I guess you are aware of the difference between browser.tabs.loadInBackground and browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground - the first one is the one toggled in the Options UI by the option you mentioned, the other one is not available there. However, there may be pages that are unaffected by changing the latter - see this page for more.

If that doesn’t help, can you reproduce this in a clean profile in 56 release, 57 Beta or 58 Nightly?

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This should still be default behavior (even though you seem to report this for 57 Beta) and if not, an add-on or user.js file may be the culprit.

You could open about:config and press <enter>, type inbackground and make sure all prefs that you see are still set to their default values. I guess you are aware of the difference between browser.tabs.loadInBackground and browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground - the first one is the one toggled in the Options UI by the option you mentioned, the other one is not available there. However, there may be pages that are unaffected by changing the latter - see this page for more.

If that doesn’t help, can you reproduce this in a clean profile in 56 release, 57 Beta or 58 Nightly?