Firefox 3.5, what motion am I making that keeps popping tabs into new windows?

I updated to Firefox 3.5, (and the 3.5.1 update) on WinXP SP3 and so far like it quite a bit. Not much different, but seems faster and better.

One thing that is driving me nuts is that when I switch back to my main window, with three tabs open (Two mail accounts, and a page I check regularly) and I click on a tab, it pops out into a new window.

I cannot figure out what I am doing to cause it. I think and intend to just click on the tab, which I must do thousands of times a day. But usually when I switch back from another window this causes a pop out.

Good news is, with 3.5 it is pretty easy to drag it back, but it is really annoying, and I cannot seem to figure out what I am doing to cause it.

Anyone else seen this issue?

geoffc

Posted 2009-07-21T12:19:31.640

Reputation: 1 113

I have this issue occasionally on my MacBook, since the touchpad is a bit iffy after 18 months. If you're on a laptop or have an older mouse, this could be causing it. – Andrew Scagnelli – 2009-07-21T13:33:40.750

Answers

You are probably clicking a little too slowly (between mousdown and mouseup) with a little too much velocity, initiating a "drag" operation, pulling the tab out into its own window. This happens to me sometimes with Google Chrome.

It looks like this addon is the only way to manipulate this behavior, for now.

EndangeredMassa

Posted 2009-07-21T12:19:31.640

Reputation: 181

You think? But why only when I swap windows, I have yet (in my memory) triggered it once I was on the window. Well, something to think about. Thanks for the fast response! – geoffc – 2009-07-21T12:22:29.680

1This happens to me in chrome sometimes too. Never in FF though. – pavsaund – 2009-07-21T12:22:42.800

Oh, I see. I just tried doing that in FF a dozen times, but couldn't reproduce this higher rate of pop-out. – EndangeredMassa – 2009-07-21T12:25:10.293

I was plagued with this on Google Chrome, and now its starting to happen on firefox 3.5. Something to do with the way touchpad tap-drag works has changed in ff3.5 – nik – 2009-07-21T13:49:36.917

1geoffc, maybe its because of the direction you're usually moving the mouse when swapping windows. – Travis – 2009-07-21T14:52:26.383

@TPops: Probably true. Good point. – geoffc – 2009-07-21T18:34:25.880

I will try out the Addin and see if it helps! Thanks that was very helpful! – geoffc – 2009-07-21T18:35:54.190

Instead of just clicking, you might be drag-and-dropping, even slightly, the tab into the main canvas: This causes the tab to open in a new window.

So maybe you're not clicking fast enough, or some kind of event tells firefox that the mouse button is still hold when you've "un-clicked" the button. Performance Issues?

altermativ

Posted 2009-07-21T12:19:31.640

Reputation: 189

I get this with Chrome all the time. Even though I'm sure I'm doing a normal click, sometimes it thinks I'm dragging the tabs halfway across the screen. This is usually associated with heavy CPU load from flash movies on the tab.

recursive

Posted 2009-07-21T12:19:31.640

Reputation: 857