Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

opening a webpage goes to previously open tab

  • 5 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

Hopefully the question title describes the issue

Firefox must have done an update because for example I have a browers open with 10 tabs and then open a new tab to load google.com If one of the previous 10 tabs had google.com as a page I had loaded clicked or not then it jumps to that tab instead of using what I wanted as a brand new tab

How do I go about restoring this option as I can't see a way in the options screen and I can't figure out on about:config what to change there.

Thanks again

Hopefully the question title describes the issue Firefox must have done an update because for example I have a browers open with 10 tabs and then open a new tab to load google.com If one of the previous 10 tabs had google.com as a page I had loaded clicked or not then it jumps to that tab instead of using what I wanted as a brand new tab How do I go about restoring this option as I can't see a way in the options screen and I can't figure out on about:config what to change there. Thanks again

All Replies (5)

more options

If you try to open the same URL in more than one tab then you may have the "Switch to tab" feature preventing that. Hold down the Alt or Shift key while an entry in the drop down list is highlighted to disable "Switch to tab" and see the URL of all entries instead.

  • Alt + Enter opens the highlighted URL in a new tab.
  • Shift + Enter opens the highlighted URL in the current tab.
  • Cursor Right copies the highlighted URL to the location bar in case you want to edit it.
more options

Hi there thanks for the reply but there is no "switch to tab" option in options or in about:config for firefox that I could find

can you explain where/what you mean by that?

more options

See:

  • Tools > Options > Privacy > Location Bar: When using the location bar, suggest:
  • Bookmarks
  • History
  • Open Tabs

You can remove the check mark on "Open Tabs" if this item has a tick.

more options

Sweet, that section is misleading and I am not so sure why mozilla decided to include this but I guess there was a high number of requests for it or something.

Again, thanks a lot for your quick replies

more options

You're welcome

In previous versions you only had the option to select bookmarks and history and it wasn't possible to disable the open tabs. Now you can disable this switch to tab feature easily.