Is there any way to override HTML's target="_blank" behavior as an end user?

Question

Is there any way, in any browser, with or without an extension, to override the target="_blank" behavior?

That I am aware of, there is no browser anywhere that will allow you to open a link with a target="_blank" attribute in the same window.

Is anyone aware of any way to override this attribute for end users?

Answer 1

If the page has jquery you can inject the following:

$('a[target="_blank"]').removeAttr('target');

Answer 2

Firefox does allow you to override it:

Users who want to change this behavior need to type in about:config in a tab in the Firefox web browser. This should open the Firefox configuration. First time users need to accept a disclaimer. They then need to filter for the term browser.link.open_newwindow. The default value of that entry is 3 which opens links that would normally open in a new window in a new tab.

To force Firefox to open links (no matter if they have been designed to open in a new tab or window) in the same tab one would need to change the value to [1] which will open all links that would normally open in a new window in the same tab. Changing the value to [2] would open new windows in a new window (duh).

Value of 1: Opens links that would normally open in a new tab or new window in the current tab or window
Value of 2: Open links that would normally open in a new window, in a new window
Value of 3: Open links that would normally open in a new window in a new tab in the current window (default)

Answer 3

You can do this if your browser supports user scripts (such as Chrome or Firefox via a plugin).

Then you can write a user script to override the behaviour for the site/page you are interested in.

Answer 4

Greasemonkey has a number of user-generated scripts that will do this.

A few seconds of google turned up "Remove Link Target" -- there are lots of others.

Update

I updated the link to the Userscripts.org mirror, since the original site is dead.

Here is the source of the script:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Remove Link Target
// @creator        kousi
// @description    Removes target attribute completely.
// @version        1.0
// @include        http://*
// ==/UserScript==

var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

for (var i=links.length-1; i>=0; i--) {
  links[i].removeAttribute("target");
}

Answer 5

Opera supports that in the pop up menu from right clicking on a link. It could be clearer, the choice is just labelled “Open”.

That is available in Opera 12 but it is one of the features missing from Opera 15.