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Dealing with New Browser Windows

Do you hate it when websites use new windows for some (or all) of their links?  Do you prefer tabbed browsing?  If so, then we've got some helpful tips that might make your browsing experience at The-Gift-Wizard.com (or any other website) a more pleasant experience.  

Why are we offering this advice?  Well, while you are browsing The Gift Wizard, you may notice that many of our links to external sites (i.e. those that are not a part of the-gift-wizard.com domain) are configured to open up in a new browser window.  We do this because we offer gift ideas that can lead you to many different websites all across the Internet.  It's the nature of our site.  We offer quality gift idea advice, but a lot of the actual items you will find at online stores on other websites.  We merely make suggestions about where you can find them.  But... well, frankly... we don't want you to leave us!  So, you'll see that certain links to other websites will open in a new window, leaving The-Gift-Wizard.com in its own, original browser window.  We feel that makes it easier for you to come back to us in case the gift idea didn't fulfill your needs - yes, we will admit, it is possible.  :)

So, if you just HATE it when you keep getting directed to a new window, here are some suggestions.

For Mozilla Firefox users, you can set your browser options to force all links that would normally open in a new browser window to open in either a new tab or the existing tab.  To do this, you have to do 2 things.

1) Open a new tab in Firefox and type "about:config" (without the quotes) in the address bar (where you normally type a website address or URL).  Then click Go or hit the Enter key.  You should get a page like this:

Scroll down to the option "browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs".  Unless you've done this before, it should be set to "false".  Double-click that row and the value will change to "true" and the row should now show in bold font.

2) Next, go to the "Tools" menu of Firefox and choose "Options".  On the left, click "Advanced".  You should see a section called "Tabbed Browsing" that now has a new option called "Force links that open new windows to open in:", like this:

Just choose the option you prefer!

For Microsoft Internet Explorer users, there is a program called Maxthon (used to be called MyIE2).  It's like putting a skin on top of IE and it allows tabbed browsing within Internet Explorer.  From what we can tell, you can't configure it to open the new window links in the same tab, but it does allow you to open them in a new tab instead of a new window.  Once it's installed, just go to Options>Maxthon Options and click on the "Tab" link for the available settings.

And there you go... no more unwanted new windows!  We hope this helps in your browsing experience anywhere throughout the web.  If you find any of this information to be inaccurate or incomplete, please let us know and we'll make the appropriate corrections.

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