Firefox 3.6 Fix – Open New Tabs in Far Right

Posted: January 22, 2010 | Filed Under Hacks, Tabbed Browsing

Fix New Open Link in New Tab Behavior in Firefox 3.6

New to Firefox 3.6, when you are on a page, and you want to open a link in a new tab – rather than opening the link in the far right of the tab bar, Firefox will now open the link right next to the tab you are in. Now, while this might be convenient for some, it is a feature I don’t really need. So here is how you can disable the new “Insert Related Tab After Current” tweak in Firefox 3.6.

Make New Tab Pages Open in the Far Right of the Tab Bar

Type about:config in the address bar. Then, if needed click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
Next, in the filter box – type in:
- tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent
Right-click that about:config entry, and select “Toggle”

This will convert Firefox back to loading opening a new tab from a web page on the far right of the tab bar, rather than right next to the tab you opened it from.

To switch back, follow these same steps and toggle the “false” back to “true”.

This should help those of you out there who do not like this new feature to Firefox 3.6, or are just not ready to switch how you open a page in a new tab just yet.

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Siavash.M

Tnx a lot, this tip really helped me.
I often do like to browse multiple pages in order from left to right, so this new feature annoys me. I didn't know anything about this about:config at all.
thanks again ;)

Irina

Thank you! That new feature was annoying.
After using the old way for years, u dont really enjoy having to switch to a new way.
By this time most advanced users had their own systems.
I think this feature may only be useful for newcomers)

Gee

Thank you.

Anon

Excellent thank you.

Gzhenzo

Nice fix.

I suppose the new firefox behavior works for some folks.

It does not work for me.

I open taps from left to right and I want them to appear from left to right in a strict "newest on the right, older on the left" framework.

When I want to view a link immediately instead of putting it in the "cue" then I will open the link in a new window.

That's my way, and its all goofed up under the default 3.6 behavior. Thank goodness there is a fix.

Guesty McGuest

Thank you! Why the heck they decided to emulate Chrome and do this is beyond me. It sucks to have them pop after your main tab!

Greg

Thank you very much, that "new feature" was starting to annoy me!!

Jim

I f*$%ing LOATHE this feature... I agree with culwin This is exactly how tabs work in IE, and one of the many reasons that I don't use IE. At the very least, allow user settings for this feature.

culwin

THANK YOU. I just updated my Firefox 10 minutes ago and I already experienced this annoying "feature". I also can't believe they don't give us a normal menu option to set it how we want it. This is a type of move I expect from IE.

dawn

from a real computer novice, I say "Thank You!"!

Enano

One of the many who will say thank you for this.

Ron Paul Fan

Awesome!

Thanks

Anon

Thank you. I can't believe they forced that change without giving us an option from the menu.

comi

awesome, worked !

Ars

Thanks man, it was getting annoying.

LM

THANK YOU! The new "feature" is SO annoying! Thanks for telling me how to turn it off!

Sal

Brilliant, This guide is short and very very sweet!!

Bob Tregilus

Thanks for this. How annoying this "new" feature is. I get all screwed up when I have multiple tabs open in FF 3.6. thanks for the fix!

paul

thanks a lot! mine seemed to sometimes open next to the current tab and other times at the far right. your fix was exactly what i needed!

cheat-master30

Thanks for this, I never got why this was changed, and it's certainly a bit of an inconveniance how it's setup by default in Firefox 3.6.

DH

Most excellent piece of information! Much appreciated :)

It's annoying for me because I don't always visit the new tab right away... the reason I would open in new tab instead of the current one is because I want to view it later, thus I'd prefer them in some type of queue representing the order that I opened the new tabs. Just because I open a new link from this current tab does not mean it's related to the current tab at all, which would break any logical ordering of the tab.

Gerton

Thanks for sharing this information with us..
Too bad the options menu does not accommodate this feature.

MIB

THIS IS MOST STUPID THINK IN FIREFOX I'VE EVER SEEN

fatty

@ "MIB"

MIB,

You are a simpleton who, in order to make up for your own deficiencies, likes to belittle other people's useful contributions. I suggest you concentrate your energy on other tasks; like spelling, for example. I hope you don't have to "thing" about a "think" anytime soon.

Luciano C O

Thank's a lot! Really useful tip!

hmelling

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

you are a life saver.

Chinman

Thanks for this - just what was needed

I found double-clicking on the tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent changed the value to false - which worked as well.

Kev

You are a life saver.

ifrit

Thanks!!

Raje

Thanks you, though the future isn't bad or anything, I open multiple tabs at the time, in a certain order, so I would have to go in reverse of everything if it was always opened it right by the current tab, it's just inconvenient for me.

nixon's head

Awesome. Thank you, that was going to drive me insane.

mrm2010

You're such a nerd for knowing how to do that. Thank you though :)

christopherjoel

Thank you!!! This resolves so much newly caused stress thanks to this new "feature".

agyu

Thanks so much! This is such a relief. I was thinking of going back to 3.5 because of this 'problem'.

Waterpoof

May I ask, have you got a tutorial that lets us remove 'Open New Window' option?. It's quite annoying having to not be able to do it in Firefox 3.6 I'm running on Windows 7, and switching windows is quite annoying at times, also if youre using a blog, you have the issue where the pop up to insert link/image firefox would resize the whole window!! instead of just letting the pop up only to open in a new window

Bingo Man

If yo use Tab Mix Plus, it will overwrite the default 'open new tab next to current tab' behaviour of Firefox 3.6. If you want to enable that new default behaviours of 3.6, just go to TMP's options and choose 'Open new tabs next to current one'. :)

http://tmp.garyr.net/

Scott

Thanks for the tip.

T.J.

Awesome, thank you so much!

dex

thanks!!

Steve

Thanks for the fix! It was driving me crazy!

Ben l Awesome Wallpapers

Wow! thanks a lot! I didn't like the new change at all!

Ricardo Branco

Thanks a lot! I was going mad with this change!!!

Keith

I'm actually really glad they added this feature. Normally the tab that I'm opening is related to the current page so I want it closer. I got used to this on chrome and I'm happy to see FF 3.6 implement it.

Steve

They could have at least added a setting under Tools > Options > Tabs

Keith

I agree. The right answer is always to provide the user an option.

Markus

Why did they change it at all? I never liked that default IE behavior and now found out that Firefox does exactly the same.
Thanks for the description how to change it, makes my life way easier!!!

If you change things like that, you should be able to switch it back in the options, not through the about:config.

Cheers
Markus

Piyush

Thanks a lot for this tip !! It was sort of annoying the new behavior .. :)

Petr Urban

And what if I want to open all tabs right next to the tab I am? I don't want to use extension - any ideas?

Mitch

Just upgrade to Firefox 3.6, it does that automatically. This tweak is just for those people out there who might not like it.

Petr Urban

I have already upgraded :-) But Firefox does “Insert Related Tab After Current”. Important thing is that FF opens RELATED tab right next to the tab I am. When I try to open completely new tab (for example using CTRL + T) Firefox opens it far right :-(

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