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Comment by outadoc | Hacker News Reader

I was completely confused when I recently discovered this behavior. I've been using middle-click to open tabs in macOS and Windows for years, and I could not understand why it automatically pasted whatever was in my clipboard.

I think it makes total sense to change the default to be aligned with the other platforms, and leave power-users the choice to keep it enabled if they wish.

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Why would middle click not open tabs? You middle click a link to open it in a new tab, you middle click a text box to paste into it. Neither interfere with the other. On windows, you can middle click anywhere on the page (except links, ofc) to go into a scrolling mode where dragging your mouse around changes the scrolling direction. I don't think many people use that feature, but it's there, and doesn't work on linux.

> I think it makes total sense to change the default to be aligned with the other platforms

I have been using Linux for 20 years, and I don't remember a time where this did not exist. I don't see a reason to change it now "to be aligned with the other platforms".

If I wanted to run on Windows or macOS, I would run on Windows or macOS. No reason to try to get Linux to become Windows or macOS IMO.

Why is "aligning with other platforms" a goal at all? The whole reason for having multiple platforms is that they don't have to align with each other.

> I think it makes total sense to change the default to be aligned with the other platforms, and leave power-users the choice to keep it enabled if they wish.

If you want to use another platform, use another platform. Desktop Linux doesn't need to conform to them.

> I think it makes total sense to change the default to be aligned with the other platforms, and leave power-users the choice to keep it enabled if they wish.

I think it makes total sense to not use cmd-c/cmd-v in Firefox on mac to be aligned with the other platforms, and leave power-users the choice to keep it enabled if they wish.

See what I did ther?

Keep in mind the desktop env knows when you are left clicking a link or middle clicking. So on linux, usually it's left click to go to a link or middle click to open link in a new tab.

Middle click to open new tabs is compatible with middle click to paste.

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