How to disable the 'Open Link in New Tab' in the browser?

user_724099 0
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How do I disable/remove the 'Open Link in New Tab' option in the right-click menu of the browser? If this is not possible with javascript etc then is there a way to modify what happens when the user clicks on this link, for example, display an alert or prevent the tab from loading..?

cross-browser browser javascript
4 Answers

2019

I'll highlight 2 important comments:

  1. nnnnnn @ Aug 10 '11 at 5:49 :

    As a user I would prefer that type of feature be triggered from a button rather than a link. I expect links to work in a more standard way including giving me the option to right-click for the menu or to middle-click to open directly in a new tab.

  2. Pars @ Dec 21 '13 at 13:10 :

    this wont work when you click by mouse middle button or hold CTRL and click on a link. how to those cases.

It's up to the browser to decide whether it gets the link-behavior or not.

Some modern browser (like Chrome) will consider it a link if all the below conditions matches:

  1. It's an <a>...</a> tag (not span, div, button, etc).
  2. It has href attribute.
  3. href attribute is not empty.

The below will get the link-behavior:

<a href="http://www.website.com">Click Here</a>

The below will NOT get the link-behavior:

<a>Not link because no href</a>
<a href="">Not link because empty href</a>
<span>Not link because not "a" tag</span>
<span href="http://www.website.com">Not link because not "a" tag again</span>

Important Note:

Again, it's up to the browser to decide. Some old/stupid browsers may give it link-behavior if ANY of the 3 conditions above matches!

Conclusion

If it's a link then use <a href="some_link">...</a>. If it's not a link then use something else, like <button>.

user_1348240
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