This is a really simple tip for Firefox (and Chrome, although it is even more obvious there). Many people will already use it but some may not have noticed it – especially those who recently migrated from IE where there is no direct equivalent.
Non-Clickable Website Links are most often found in blog/forum comments – but sometimes the website publisher just forgets to make them clickable ;-)
E.g. If I forgot to make the following URL link clickable it would look like this: https://techlogon.com/2011/08/28/top-10-most-common-home-user-computer-problems/
To visit that webpage you would have to either
1. Type it in the address bar – takes far too long
2. Select (highlight) the entire website address, copy it, open a new tab then paste it in the address bar – still takes too long
3. Direct Open – select (highlight) the website address and open it directly in a new tab/window – by far the quickest and easiest option
Direct Open in Firefox: Select (highlight) the whole of the website address, right click it and choose the option you want from the top of the context menu:
- Open Link in New Tab (but don’t switch tab focus to it)
- Open Link In Foreground Tab (and switch tab focus to it)
- Open Link in New Window (and switch focus to that new window)
Direct Open in Chrome:
It’s even more obvious in Chrome:
Select (highlight) the whole of the website address, right click it and choose ‘Go to… [the website address]’ from the context menu – opens in a new tab and switches focus to it.
Conclusion
This simple tip may seem obvious to many but I have met Firefox users who are so used to copy/paste that they have completely overlooked the ‘Open Link…’ options in the context menu…
Sadly this is yet another basic feature that IE misses out on – in IE you can select (highlight) the website address then Copy and Paste it into the address bar…
