Technology Tales

Adventures in consumer and enterprise technology

Wonders of the middle mouse button

Published on 26th February 2007 Estimated Reading Time: 1 minute

My installation of Firefox seems to have stopped listening to the target attribute of hyperlinks. Thankfully, the middle mouse button comes to the rescue. Clicking on a link with the middle button opens it the destination page up in a new window or tab, depending on how you set your defaults. The behaviour goes even further than this: the trusty middle mouse button does the same for bookmarks and the Google search bar; all very useful. And it is not just a Firefox thing, either. IE7 does the same thing for web page hyperlinks and bookmarks while in Opera, it is limited to links on web pages.

  • The content, images, and materials on this website are protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, or published in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. All trademarks, logos, and brand names mentioned on this website are the property of their respective owners. Unauthorised use or duplication of these materials may violate copyright, trademark and other applicable laws, and could result in criminal or civil penalties.

  • All comments on this website are moderated and should contribute meaningfully to the discussion. We welcome diverse viewpoints expressed respectfully, but reserve the right to remove any comments containing hate speech, profanity, personal attacks, spam, promotional content or other inappropriate material without notice. Please note that comment moderation may take up to 24 hours, and that repeatedly violating these guidelines may result in being banned from future participation.

  • By submitting a comment, you grant us the right to publish and edit it as needed, whilst retaining your ownership of the content. Your email address will never be published or shared, though it is required for moderation purposes.