Recently switched back to Firefox. This is the number one issue that could potentially convince me to switch back to chrome.
Here's how hyperlinks on a website are supposed to work:
Clicking on a link that takes you to a page within the same website opens that link in the same tab, allowing you to use the back button to navigate to the previous page.
Clicking on a link that takes you to a different website opens a separate tab, leaving your current tab in tact.
Firefox not only doesn't do this, it apparently can't do this, which is very frustrating. On Firefox it appears you must choose one or the other. Either all links open in a new tab, or all links open in the same tab. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is.
A few examples of very common internet use scenarios where this becomes a problem:
If you're in a chat window on a site (let's use FB as an easy example) and someone sends you a link, if your browser is set to not open new tabs, clicking the link will take you away from fb, and your chat window is gone. Now you have to navigate back to it if you want to keep talking. In some cases, such as tech support chat windows, this has the potential of losing your chat link entirely. Very upsetting if you had to queue for that chat for any length of time.
If your browser is set to having links open in a new tab, when you're on a site like Amazon or ebay, clicking on a product will open a new tab. That slows down browsing significantly by removing your ability to simply use the back function to return to the product listings. Most mice these days have back and forward buttons built in specifically for ease of internet browsing, and this renders them useless in the exact scenario they're designed for.
The only real solution is setting your browser to open links in the same tab, and training yourself to remember that when you click on certain links, you need to right click and select "open in new tab" which is honestly a needless pain in the butt, and super annoying when you forget and click on a link, expecting it to behave the way links have behaved for the past... couple of decades.
