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Firefox opens a new window and moves the active tab to it. How do I stop this?

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  • Last reply by quodlibet

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Got multiple tabs open. Firefox suddenly closes the tab I'm working on (this seems to happen when I'm scrolling) and moves it to a new window, shifting the focus to a previously inactive tab. What a swell feature! How can I get rid of it?

Got multiple tabs open. Firefox suddenly closes the tab I'm working on (this seems to happen when I'm scrolling) and moves it to a new window, shifting the focus to a previously inactive tab. What a swell feature! How can I get rid of it?

Chosen solution

Firefox 3.5/6 versions have a feature called tear-off tabs.

You can detach a tab from the current window and open it in a new window by dragging a tab in the browser window.

You can drag that tab back to the tab bar in the original window to undo that detaching.


bug489729 (Disable detach and tear off tab): https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/12276

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Seçilmiş Həll

Firefox 3.5/6 versions have a feature called tear-off tabs.

You can detach a tab from the current window and open it in a new window by dragging a tab in the browser window.

You can drag that tab back to the tab bar in the original window to undo that detaching.


bug489729 (Disable detach and tear off tab): https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/12276

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Thank you very much, cor-el.

Please forgive my obtuseness, but do some people find tear-off tabs a useful feature? Why?