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Facebook kills my Google searches

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  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by AlphaCat

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Clicking a Facebook or Instagram link in a Google search opens a new tab and kills the Google tab. Why? I have to restore the closed tab (and its history) from History > Recently Closed Tabs. This has not yet happened with any non-Facebook-affiliated tabs.

I know that Facebook is evil, but damn.

Firefox 92.0, 64-bit (This has happened in the last five or so versions.) Windows 10 Home, V. 20H2, OS Build 19042.1237, Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3530.0

Thank you.

Clicking a Facebook or Instagram link in a Google search opens a new tab and kills the Google tab. Why? I have to restore the closed tab (and its history) from History > Recently Closed Tabs. This has not yet happened with any non-Facebook-affiliated tabs. I know that Facebook is evil, but damn. Firefox 92.0, 64-bit (This has happened in the last five or so versions.) Windows 10 Home, V. 20H2, OS Build 19042.1237, Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3530.0 Thank you.

Chosen solution

This is a feature of the Facebook Container extension.

By the way, you also can restore the closed tab by either:

  • pressing Ctrl+Shift+T
  • right-clicking any tab and clicking Reopen Closed Tab

To avoid this problem, you could:

(A) Disable or remove the Facebook Container extension (B) Open all links to FB sites using Ctrl+Click, or middle-click, or right-click > Open Link in New Tab (does that work?) (C) Set Google to open all links in a new tab (I haven't tested this myself, but it seems like it should work) on this page: https://www.google.com/preferences ("Where results open" => new window)

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Chosen Solution

This is a feature of the Facebook Container extension.

By the way, you also can restore the closed tab by either:

  • pressing Ctrl+Shift+T
  • right-clicking any tab and clicking Reopen Closed Tab

To avoid this problem, you could:

(A) Disable or remove the Facebook Container extension (B) Open all links to FB sites using Ctrl+Click, or middle-click, or right-click > Open Link in New Tab (does that work?) (C) Set Google to open all links in a new tab (I haven't tested this myself, but it seems like it should work) on this page: https://www.google.com/preferences ("Where results open" => new window)

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Now that's service. Thank you again.

Apparently Facebook is evil enough to prompt us regular folks to attempt to thwart it at every turn. The Duck Duck Go search engine disables Facebook-related website bits, too--though it doesn't seem to kill tabs.

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