"A gmail link on my websites" What does that mean? You have a hyperlink to gmail.com? How does the hyperlink look?

Meskó Balázs said

"A gmail link on my websites" What does that mean? You have a hyperlink to gmail.com? How does the hyperlink look?

Hi. Meskó, thanks for your reply. The full link is below, I have a WP site and applied a mailto link to a gmail account as follows mailto:christina@bakedbychristina.ie and ticked the box to open in new tab. In Chrome the mailto: link works as normal but in Firefox the link opens in the same window. Firefox used to open these links in a new tab but now they open in the same tab. The same is happening on other sites that I use on mailto: links. The full path of the mailto: link is below.

<a href="mailto:christina@bakedbychristina.ie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">christina@bakedbychristina.ie</a>

I already know if you click on that email link whatever email program is active let say Outlook installed it will go straight to Outlook unless you define what email provider opens it.

Are you allowed to use script handlers? This works around the problem, but may be annoying for users who send email links to a stand-alone mail application like Outlook:

<a href="mailto:christina@bakedbychristina_ie" target="_blank" rel="noopener" onclick="w=window.open('mailto:christina@bakedbychristina_ie', '_blank'); if(w)return false;">mailto:christina@bakedbychristina_ie</a>

(I switched the . to _ in the links so the forum wouldn't modify them.)

Thanks for your reply, I am not really looking for a workaround for this problem but failing all else I will try your solution. I suppose what I am looking for is a Firefox solution. Has Firefox changed something and if so why? Or, is the problem mine, maybe in the way I have set up Firefox, am I doing something wrong. In summary, Is the problem mine or Firefox's, if it's theirs can something be done about it and why change something that works in the first place.

When I compare Firefox 52 (Extended Support Release) and Firefox 58:

• Firefox 52, there is a new tab with your original link
• Firefox 58, there is not a new tab

So something changed, and I don't know the explanation for that.

O.K. thanks for your effort. I reckoned there was some change after an update because I have never had that problem before. It is handy to be able to refer back to the original tab while composing an email. I suppose Chrome is the way to go now unfortunately.

I'm used to taking charge of opening links in a new tab by using either:

• Ctrl+click
• middle-click using the mouse scroll wheel

So most likely I wouldn't even notice the change if you hadn't mentioned it. Each person has their own expectations, of course.

Do you want to file a bug report? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

Thats fine and would work for me too, but most people just want to click and go, also if you are viewing on a phone you do not have that option. Thanks again.

aghade said

Thats fine and would work for me too, but most people just want to click and go, also if you are viewing on a phone you do not have that option.

True, on a phone, I have to long press links to call up the context menu and open then in a new tab.