HN Suggestion: Can we please set links to open in a a new tab by default?

4 comments

robbiea13 lat temu

I personally think control + click is not that difficult.

toddhd13 lat temu

"Click" is 50% easier :)

I do UI\UX design and coding for a living, so when I look at things like this, it flags me. For example, let's say that someone designed a car where you had to stick your finger in your ear while turning the key to start it. I could honestly say to you, "It's not that difficult to stick your finger in your ear while turning the key", and that's true enough. But... would you buy that car? I mean, why is it really necessary in the first place?

Most news aggregate web sites that I visit on a daily basis link to a new tab. This is very helpful, because I can browse down the page and click the links I'm interested in without losing the page I'm on at the time, then go read the articles, and tab back and forth to the list of news articles I was looking at. This works well and is how I "expect" it to work.

As the owner of a news aggregate web site, I want people to be "on and reading" my site. I don't want them to navigate away from my site, I want them to STAY on my site. To that end, having every single link on the page navigate away from the site makes no sense whatsoever, and requires extra care on behalf of my readers to use the site in a way that it should really work in the first place. That's inefficient and not in the best interests of HN or its readers.

shyn313 lat temu

This seems more demographic oriented.

If this was a how to site for people new to the internet open in a new tab would make sense but because the users on this site are more likely to be power users the control + click is almost second nature. I guess going the other way of ctrl + click opening in same tab could work also.

On mobile this seems to be a actual pain point because press and hold then open in a new tab is a hassle.

ig113 lat temu

You could easily write a chrome plugin that added that functionality (it'd be 4-5 lines of code) if it's an issue for you.

mavhc13 lat temu

There's an option in browsers to choose to open in a new tab if the link doesn't, but no option for the opposite.