How to Keep Current Tab Open When Opening Link in New Tab on Chrome

Introduction

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wanted to open a link in a new tab while keeping the current tab open in Google Chrome? By default, when you open a link in a new tab, Chrome will switch to the new tab. However, there is a way to change this behavior so that the current tab remains open, regardless of the method used to open the new tab (context menu, ctrl-click, Vim, etc.). In this article, we will cover the key concepts related to this topic and provide detailed instructions on how to keep the current tab open when opening links in a new tab in Chrome.

Key Concepts

In order to understand how to keep the current tab open when opening links in a new tab in Chrome, it is important to first understand a few key concepts:

• Tabs: A tab is a section of a web browser window that displays a single web page. In Chrome, you can have multiple tabs open at the same time.
• New Tab: A new tab is a blank tab that you can use to open a new web page. In Chrome, you can open a new tab by clicking on the "+" button in the tab bar, pressing "Ctrl + T", or using a variety of other methods.
• Current Tab: The current tab is the tab that is currently active and being displayed in the web browser window.

Opening Links in a New Tab

When you click on a link in a web page, by default, Chrome will open the link in the current tab. However, you can change this behavior so that the link is opened in a new tab instead. This can be done in a number of ways, such as right-clicking on the link and selecting "Open link in new tab" from the context menu, pressing "Ctrl" while clicking on the link, or using a variety of other methods.

Keeping the Current Tab Open

By default, when you open a link in a new tab, Chrome will automatically switch to the new tab. However, you can change this behavior so that the current tab remains open, regardless of the method used to open the new tab. Here's how:

• Open a new tab in Chrome (e.g., by clicking on the "+" button in the tab bar, pressing "Ctrl + T", etc.).
• In the new tab, type chrome://flags in the address bar and press "Enter" to open the "Experiments" page.
• Use the search bar at the top of the page to search for "Open new tabs in the background".
• In the "Open new tabs in the background" section, select "Enabled" from the drop-down menu.
• Click the "Relaunch Now" button at the bottom of the page to restart Chrome with the new setting.

After you have done this, the current tab will remain open whenever you open a link in a new tab, regardless of the method used to open the new tab. This can be useful if you need to refer back to the current tab while viewing the linked page in the new tab.

In this article, we covered the topic of keeping the current tab open when opening links in a new tab in Chrome. We discussed the key concepts related to this topic and provided detailed instructions on how to change the default behavior so that the current tab remains open. With this knowledge, you can now easily keep the current tab open while viewing linked pages in new tabs in Chrome.

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