Have two different mouse pointers for when you hover over a link. One pointer would indicate that clicking on this link would load a new page in this instance of your browser, and a different pointer would let you know that clicking it will open a new browser window.
Maybe a third pointer for links that will do neither (and thus probably run some javascript on the page or something).
-- polarbear, Aug 28 2001

Following this link will not open a new window http://www.dcs.qmul...ib@@Bloomfield1993b
...couldn't resist it... [hippo, Aug 28 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

(?) Customizing Firebird http://texturizer.n...l#lay_linkcursornew
Change the cursor for links that open in new window and for Javascript. [flicken, Oct 04 2004]

Well, [polarbear], when I first read the title of this idea I thought it would be another rant about bad web design where the highlighted text of every link is "CLICK HERE" (like that tells me *anything* about the target of that link).

What you propose would be good to know before committing oneself to following a link. However, the sites that you want most to use this against are precisely the ones who will circumvent it most aggressively. For example, the link tells you it will open in the same window. What it does not (and can not) tell you is that there is a tag or script on that new page which in turn opens ten bazillion more windows after it loads.

Better, and more to the point, would be to equip the web browser with line-item veto power against each and every possible tag, script command, and browser behavior as part of the standard "options" menu. Allow the user (NOT the web page designer) to have absolute and final control over whether new windows will open or not, and if not, whether the request for new windows will be allowed to commandeer another window that happened to be open for another, possibly unrelated, purpose.
-- BigBrother, Aug 29 2001


How about a right-mouse-button menu option of 'Open in *this* window'?
-- angel, Aug 30 2001


I like your idea a lot.

On most links, I right-click and select "Open in New Window", because it is so much faster to close the second window and return to the first one than it is to use the Back button. And if you selected the link from somewhere in a long page, the Back button will usually put you back at the top again.

And sometimes, when the link is designed to open in a new window automatically, trying to use the "Open in New Window" feature causes the page to fail with a Javascript error or gives you a message saying the right button is not allowed.
-- willatlguy, Mar 29 2002


This is now baked in the Firebird and Mozilla browsers. See link.
-- flicken, Feb 20 2004


Open in *this* window is a great idea too! [angel] Sorry I saw both only 7 years later. TwoCruasons!
-- pashute, Apr 09 2008



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