Open a URL in a new tab and not a new window

Question

I was trying to open a URL in a new tab, as opposed to a popup window. I have also seen some related questions where the responses would look something like:

window.open(url,'_blank'); 
window.open(url);

But none of them worked for me, the browser still tried to open a popup window.

Answer 1

Nothing an author can do can choose to open in a new tab instead of a new window as it is a user preference. Please keep in mind that the default user preference in most browsers is for new tabs, so a trivial test on a browser where that preference hasn't been changed will not demonstrate this. CSS3 proposed target-new, but the specification was abandoned. The reverse is not true as by specifying certain window features for the window in the third argument of window.open(), you can trigger a new window when the preference is for tabs.