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When I click on a tab it suddenly opens in a new window in FireFox 4

  • 13 replies
  • 14 have this problem
  • 11 views
  • Last reply by mlsto

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If I right click or middle mouse click to open a new site link and click on the tab it just opens in a new window. I click once and not twice on the tab and it opens a new window but not for all seems when it wants.

If I right click or middle mouse click to open a new site link and click on the tab it just opens in a new window. I click once and not twice on the tab and it opens a new window but not for all seems when it wants.

All Replies (13)

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It is possible that you move the mouse a little bit downwards while clicking the tab and that can cause the tab to get detached and opened in a new window.


Firefox 3.5 versions and later 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.

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I don't believe I moved the mouse downward. Does not happen all the time. Will see if I am at fault next time it happens and will report back.

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... i have the same problem... and until now, i can't reconstruct how it happens.... the phenomen is just quite arbitrary...

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Sorry but it is constant, I just click once, do not shift the mouse and it just opens the tab in a new window, I am sooooo careful now clicking tabs. And I see I am not alone.

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I had this happen as well, but it was in Firefox 3.6. ^^

And I believe it is a slight finger movement that's difficult if not almost impossible to detect. That's what it seems to be in my case, anyway. :S

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Gosh, then the finger movement must be almost not non-existant as you just click it and even when I am very careful it still opens a new window.

Strange, never got this with the other versions but getting with this, it is very annoying, IE9 does not do this nor Chrome, just strange.

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i'm only getting it with firefox 4, too... and never got it in other versions... but it's nice to see that i'm not alone with this problem... i just began to think that my tab-clicking is something like a nervous twitch and i made a double click instead of a single... O.o

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No not a twitch, it just goes off on you. Hope they get this corrected. Till then back to IE and Chrome.

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Guess I'm getting the same thing. When I click on a site, the window jumps and noticed that it opens in a new window underneath the window I'm clicking on.

At first I did not know it opened in a new window underneath the main window then would lick on the link again then when getting off that link I would return to the main window then when closing the main window I noticed that the site I first clicked on had opened underneath this main window.

Yes, I know there is nothing perfect, but IT IS kind of annoying. This only started happening with the new version of FF.

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@mlsto, I don't doubt that it is caused by a bug in cases when you're being very careful, I'm just saying it can also be caused by a small finger movement that you're not conscious of.

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I uninstalled FF and deleted all preferences and reinstalled and now everything seems to be working. I believe it had something to do with upgrading, it seems better to do a clean install.

Hope this helps.

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Firefox 4 crashes often and is very slow. Very slow. I have the Ladybug add-on. From the beginning Foxfire4 has been a problem. Should I delete and reload. I really do not want lose my Bookmarks. REHKSH

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Why not save your bookmarks - FireFox tab at top > Bookmarks > Import and Backup