Comment by 0xcde4c3db
10 years ago
No, please. Managing your tabs is not the site's job, it's yours or your browser's, such as you choose to split that labor. In most modern browsers, manually opening a new tab simply means middle-clicking or Ctrl+left-clicking instead of regular clicking. And if you really want it to automatically apply to all HN links, that's a great use case for a userscript.
In application design, external links tend to open in a new tab (see Facebook, Twitter, etc...) It's been a standard on the web for almost a decade now.
My feelings are mixed on this.
On FB, I'm usually glad that links open in a new tab (well, I middle click them anyway, but sometimes I forget) because if they didn't, I'd have the huge problem of trying to infinite scroll my way back to where I was.
On just some random business website, OTOH, I usually take it to mean the business owner (or developer) thought their site was so important, it should make me keep it open while I go to another link.
I usually middle-click on HN anyway, but I feel like it's sort of nicer in a way, to be in control of that. Maybe HN feels like more of a page than an application to me because it doesn't use infinite scroll / a ton of custom Javascript behavior?
I'm inclined to agree that web _applications_ should open external links in a new tab, but I'm not sure it's best for HN.