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Disable automatic tab pinning behavior?

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I still haven't understood how exact this works in Firefox, but apparently if I open a link in a new tab, the parent tab is automatically pinned? How do I disable this automatic pinning of tabs? It is driving me nuts since the tabs are small and hard on my motor skills.

I still haven't understood how exact this works in Firefox, but apparently if I open a link in a new tab, the parent tab is automatically pinned? How do I disable this automatic pinning of tabs? It is driving me nuts since the tabs are small and hard on my motor skills.

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Firefox doesn't pin tabs automatically, a tab is only pinned if you do that via the right-click context menu or via a toolbar button.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration or userChrome.css is causing the problem.

  • switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes
  • do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window
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Chosen Solution

Firefox doesn't pin tabs automatically, a tab is only pinned if you do that via the right-click context menu or via a toolbar button.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration or userChrome.css is causing the problem.

  • switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes
  • do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window
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Thanks for the tip. It looks like I had an extension that might have been the culprit - Pin/Unpin tab extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinunpin-tab/ - Not sure when or why I even installed it.

It pins a tab automatically when doing this: "a long left mouse click anywhere on the webpage". So far I have not seen the behavior reappear.