No New Tabs

Prevents links from opening in new tabs.

No New Tabs (formerly Death To _blank) This extension does exactly what it says: it stops links from opening in new tabs. Pages open right where you are. If I wanted a new tab, I would have opened one myself! NEW IN 4.0: SMARTER AND SNEAKIER-PROOF. Some sites dodge the usual blockers by giving every link its own made-up destination, so each click opens yet another tab. Etsy does this for every listing. Version 4.0 recognizes these links and keeps them in your current tab, while still leaving alone links that are meant to load inside part of the page. Features: - Stops new tabs from links and scripts: works on ordinary links, on buttons and forms, and on websites that use scripts to open new tabs behind your back. - New tabs when you want them: hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) while clicking, or click with your middle mouse button, and the link opens in a new tab as usual. - Doesn’t break websites: sign-in pop-ups (like “Sign in with Google”), print buttons and embedded content keep working normally. - Choose which sites: add sites like Gmail to your exceptions list to let them open new tabs as usual. Or flip it around and only block new tabs on the sites you list. Exceptions apply to the whole site, including anything embedded in its pages. - Works as you scroll: handles sites that keep loading new content, like Facebook or X. - One-click control: click the toolbar icon to turn the extension on or off, or to turn it off just for the site you’re on. Requires Chrome 111 or newer. If you find a link or a script that manages to escape, let me know and I’ll hunt it down. Email (available on the options page) is the most reliable way to reach me. I’m very responsive! CHANGELOG Version 4.0.0 (2026/10/28) - Major rewrite - Should work on all sites: sites like Etsy listings, which use unique link targets, now stay in the same tab. - Fewer glitches: print previews work properly (were broken in some cases), and your exception list now covers sites’ embedded frames, such as in Gmail. - Instant settings: changes apply right away, without having to reload the page. Version 3.1.2 (2026/10/07) - Correctly persist button state across restarts Version 3.1.1 (2026/08/17) - Fix initialization error on empty iframes Version 3.1.0 (2026/08/17) - Fixed handling of clicks with middle mouse button Version 3.0.2 (2026/08/04) - Fixed an issue where the extension would stop working when navigating back to a page (resolved Back-Forward Cache incompatibility). - Significantly improved link detection to reliably catch dynamically loaded content, mobile-style touch events, and hidden links on complex modern websites. Version 3.0.1 (2026/01/11) - Bugfix: Command clicking (or control clicking for you non Mac folk) should open links in a new tab, even with this extension. The previous update broke that, so this one fixes it. Version 3.0.0 (2025/12/24) - The "Unbreakable" Update: Renamed to No New Tabs. - JavaScript Handling: Finally added the ability to prevent scripts from opening new tabs/windows via JS. - Overhauled logic to handle modern web-app navigation better. Version 2.1.2 (2025/11/25) - Performance improvements - You can now use a popup from the extension to easily enable/disable the extension for the current page Version 2.1.1 (2025/9/25) - Small bugfix in fenced frames (really just an annoying log message). - Made config page dynamic, no "Save" required. So fancy. Version 2.1.0 (2025/9/19) - Significant optimizations and performance improvements. - Removed jQuery dependency, other optimizations. - Reduces memory usage and should improve page load performance as well. Version 2.0.4 (2025/9/17) - Version 2.0.3 was a rollback to version 2.0.1. - Fixed a bug in 2.0.2 which reversed the behavior of white and blacklisting, effectively breaking the extension. Sorry! Version 2.0.2 (2025/9/9) - Fixed a bug in rewriting links with rels. - Made the extension overall more robust, fixed some possible race conditions. - Made the options page prettier. Version 2.0.1 (2024/10/18) - Fixed a bug where some features are disabled after updating (sorry!). Version 2.0 (2024/10/15) - Updates to manifest V3 - Big rewrite under the hood. Settings are not persisted from previous version, sorry. I do this in my spare time and I didn't have the gumption to spend more time on this than it already took to just get the basic functionality working again... Version 1.9 (2020/10/15) - Bugfix: previous version of the script did not work when the "Filter HTML forms" option was deselected. Version 1.8 (2017/12/16) Big change - Should be noticeably faster (only monitors updated/added elements on page, rather than rescanning the whole page on modification). - Added ability to enable/disable by clicking on extension button (also added a toggle in the options page). - Added the __blank (two underscores) target. - Requires fewer permissions, should be fewer corner cases that it misses. Version 1.7 (2015/11/25) - Allows the user to specify what the "_blank" target should be rewritten to (don't do this if you don't know what it means!). Version 1.6 (2015/10/25) - Now disables _blank (etc.) on the <base> tag as well. Version 1.5 (2014/03/07) - Now works on HTML forms as well. Can be disabled in the options menu if you prefer (although please tell me why, if you do!). Version 1.4.3 (2013/11/8) - Fixed one more migration bug. Sorry 'bout that. Versions 1.4.1, 1.4.2 (2013/11/6) - Fix bugs that wouldn't allow upgraders to use this script (sorry!). Version 1.4 (2013/11/6) - Exceptions can now be specified as a blacklist instead of the default whitelist. Version 1.3 (2013/9/15) - Fixes a javascript development error (probably invisible to most people). - Upgrades to jQuery 2.0 internally, which may make things a bit faster (but is actually probably completely unnoticeable). Version 1.2 (2013/7/7) - Now works with pre-rendered pages (frequently generated from Google searches). As a side-effect, now requires the webNavigation permission to know when new pages are loaded or swapped in. Version 1.1 (2013/6/1) - Added _hplink to bad targets, which is used by Huffington Post (don't judge me). Version 1.0.1 (2013/3/10) - No changes; re-uploading due to bug in Webstore. Version 1.0 (2013/3/9): - Now works on dynamically-loaded AJAX content. Useful for sites like Twitter and Facebook. - Added a whitelist option. - Now requires permission to view your tabs, so that I can know which page you're browsing (needed for the whitelist). Version 0.9 (2013/3/3): - Now catch rel=ext and rel=e, which are sometimes used to open new windows in javascript-based techniques. Version 0.8 (2012/7/3): - A change in the previous version meant that my script didn't operate while the page was still loading. Fixed now. Version 0.7 (2012/7/3): - Various changes due to Chrome updates. No user-visible changes. Version 0.6 (2011/6/24): - Added the _newtab target Version 0.5 (2011/04/29): - Now works for file:// URLs as well. Version 0.4 (2010/10/28): - No longer needs permission to view your tabs or history (mind you, it wasn't making use of this permission before). It still needs permission to access "Your data on all websites", but there's no getting around that -- it rewrites the links on every page you browse! Version 0.3 (2010/10/28): - Removes rel=external (which doesn't necessarily open a new window, but some pages use javascript to open such links in new windows). Version 0.2 (2010/07/21): - Now blocks the _new target as well.