“Force link that open new window to open in new tab” for Firefox 2

Firefox 2 removes option to “Force link that open new window to open in new tab”. I found this to be very disappointing, since I always activate this option. Working with tabs is one of the reason I use Firefox, if some sites force me to open new window, it is just as annoying as using MSIE 6 again!!

So here is how you can set this in Firefox 2:

Open about:config and set:
browser.link.open_external -> 3
browser.link.open_newwindow -> 3
browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction -> 2

And you’re done!

13 Responses to ““Force link that open new window to open in new tab” for Firefox 2”


  1. 1 Andi

    You’re right, I don’t know why FF 2.0 disabling this future in default (like in FF 1.5.x), annoying.. :(
    I’ll try your setting… Thanks a lot :)
    nb:
    isn’t it need to be restarted after applying the config?

  2. 2 Brahmasta

    Hm, nice..
    Everyone should have their own way to use this browser.
    So it would be not good if Firefox try to remove this feature.

  3. 3 Nanda Firdausi

    to Andi:

    I’ve tried it before, and I don’t need to restart my browser.

  4. 4 Andi

    This should fix the problem..
    Tab Mix Plus:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122/

    I’ve just tried it, and worked! :D

  5. 5 jan

    some open-new-window links specify the size of the window, in which case the following needs to be 0 to keep it from opening a new window:

    browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction

  6. 6 Nanda Firdausi

    Thank you for the tip, Jan!

  7. 7 Aj

    I cant find the reason why, but when i upgraded from FF1.5 to FF2.0 the only thing that i didnt like was the fact that when i used to perform a search in Google, each click of a result would open in a new tab, which is how i set my Tab Mix addin. No for some bizzare reason, the first click opens a new tab, but then each click on another search result overwrites the new tab.

  8. 8 laharrin

    Thanks for the tip. I missed not having this feature in the settings for FF2.

  9. 9 citizenofnowhere

    thanks very much for this - it’s been annoying me since the upgrade and now it’s fixed!! yay~

  10. 10 ed

    Do you guys know which setting will force new links to open in a separate tab.

    When searching on Google my preferences are set to open results in a new window and in FF 2 news pages to open in a new tab. The first result will open a new tab and each result I click after that opens in that same tab.

  11. 11 Dave haskel

    Thank you very much for the tip. I hope this gets to the top of google so everyone will go here first :)

  12. 12 SatishB

    specify target=”_new” in the hyperlink in asp.net or anchor tag in html.
    Unfortunately it dosent work in IE and works in Mozilla and Netscape

  13. 13 Damian

    It’s been a long time since Jan posted but nevertheless i wanted to thank him/her. I have been searching for this kind of solution for SO long.

    THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH JAN!!

  1. 1 tun0.de Blog » Firefox Tipps Nr. 2
  2. 2 Jeremy Visser » Actually open external links in new tabs

Leave a Reply