Javascript and Open in a New Tab

March 12th, 2011
tech
Many sites have things that look like links but are actually javascript. When you middle click them to tell them to open in a new tab, the browser can't do what you want. The simple solution is for web programmers to use simple RESTful design and avoid javascript when a standard link would do. But that requires fixing things in a lot of different places. So what about a centralized solution, a browser change, perhaps as an extension, that interpreted an "open in a new tab" action as:
  1. Create a full duplicate of this page in a new tab
  2. Run the javascript there
Would this break anything? Are there sites that use unique ids or something in their javascript and use these when talking to their host?

Comment via: substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

It isn’t always evil to ally with Steve Bannon

Scott Alexander wrote:

via Thing of Things October 19, 2026

Was the HuggingFace hacking incident scheming?

In July 2026, internal OpenAI agents hacked HuggingFace (HF) in order to figure out how their evaluation grader works. This involved a thousand agents coordinating on an improvised message board to carry out an elaborate sequence of exploits. A later grou…

via Victoria Krakovna October 18, 2026

There's no point at which turning your brain off will work

In early 2025, I started seeing people turn off their brain as they use LLMs1. They would have an LLM take an action (summarize text, write some code, etc.), and just assume that it worked2. This generally didn't work in early 2025 and the result was …

via Posts on September 18, 2026

more     (via openring)