Yes, dear reader: today we will learn open links in a new browser tab, a very complicated technique that… No. Seriously, I’m going to take advantage of this being MC Basics, the easy how-to section of our site, to get rid of the thorn. And here we are in the middle of 2023 and I still see people opening links like they just picked up a mouse for the first time in their life.

Of course, I’m talking about opening links in a new browser tab on desktop, which can also be done on mobile phones, but things move differently there. What’s almost automatic on mobile happens on PC, though a manual task by definition, although the horizontal format and available space accompany it. Today, opening bookmarks in a browser is something as basic as using the browser itself, and of course doing it from links, of course.

And how do you open links in a new browser tab? I ask for the same reason I’m writing about something so basic that I thought about it several times before I started doing it. The story is, as I say, I keep seeing people opening links like someone eating pizza with a fork and knife and outdoing me; and by people I don’t just mean people accidentalbut until youtubers technologies to understand these things.

I won’t be the one to stop you from opening a link like you did fifteen or twenty years ago, when tabbed browsers became popular, by right-clicking (on touch pad on a laptop by pressing two fingers together) on the link, opening the context menu and choosing “open link in new tab” or similar.

Stop doing it like that!

But I’ll be the one to tell you it’s time for an upgrade, that it’ll be worth it. Note:

• The fastest and most convenient way to open a link in a new tab is middle mouse click or from touch padwith three-finger tap.

Want to make it more elegant and even have the ability to open that link in the foreground or background? Follow these steps:

• You can open the link in a new tab in seconds by pressing the “Ctrl” key with a normal click (also in touch pad).
• You can open the link in a new tab in the foreground by pressing the «Shift (Capital)» key with a normal click (also in touch pad).

And that’s all. If you want you can try all three ways by opening this link… But I’m not responsible for where it takes you. Aar!