new window, or not new window

Posted on February 11, 2008
Filed Under opinion |

I got in a heated argument in the pub last night about hyperlinks. I know. Geek. Capital G.

Anyway. Apparently I’m an egomaniac because I sometimes target links at a new window. I’m up there with war criminals and drug dealers. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, evil.

In my defence I argued that most sane people use tabbed browsers now, so rather than opening a new window, you simply cause a new tab to appear.But the vehemence was strong. And it was strong from non geeks too. People who just casually surf told me that new window = dodgy site in their minds.

So guess what - I’m cutting down. New window links will be fewer and further between. Sometimes I can admit I’m wrong. At least in part.

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Comments

2 Responses to “new window, or not new window”

  1. Steve on February 15th, 2008 3:42 am

    You’re not wrong. When I surf and especially when reading blogs that contain links to items pertinent to the article, it’s a real pain when the article you were reading is gone. Yeah, yeah, I know, hit the back button. I always right click links and select ‘open in new tab’.

    Just my two cents worth.

  2. Marc on April 23rd, 2008 8:17 am

    thats a shame.

    I open almost every link in a new tab and have the “Snap Links” firefox addon which speeds up the process.

    Also, I try to use those links on my sites whenever possible, especially when linking out.

    Eventually people must realize that its soo much faster to open an new tab than a new window, especially with IE.

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