Google has added "on mousedown" to SERPS links

...meaning you can no longer drag links to a new window

[MichaelBluejay]

Google has added "on mousedown" to the A HREF tags in the SERPS. That means that in browsers that support drag & drop, like Safari (maybe IE too, but I don't know since I don't use Windows), you can no longer drag a link to another window to open the link in that window. I like dragging links to new windows so I can keep the original SERPs visible.

Looks like I'm switching to Yahoo for my searching now.

[Brett_Tabke]

That's weird - they have had that on mouse down redirect tracker for a couple of years now. What did they update the code and it resulted in an incompatability? Or was Safari updated?

[MichaelBluejay]

I haven't updated Safari recently so I doubt it's that.

I just tried it again and the behavior is now a little different. I still can't drag a SERP result to a new window, because nothing happens when I try (no outline of the link appears under the pointer). But I guess that's an improvement from Google rudely taking me to the SERP result as soon as the mouse goes down.

A workaround is to turn Javascript off and THEN search Google. Or the easy alternative, just use Yahoo to search instead.

BTWY, I can still drag non-SERP links on Google, such as the 1-10 page numbers on the bottom of the page.

[Lorel]

Try Control/Click then a box opens allowing you to open in another window. Works on the Mac anyway.

[ramachandra]

I usually use Mozilla Browser and for me its a easy method to right click on the href link and click on "open link in new tab". Mozilla has got an advantage by opening in a new tab, it will not switch over to new tab unless you move to the opened link tab.

IMO everybody has his own practice on click methods.

[MichaelBluejay]

Yeah, I know I can control-click (or right-click, with my five-button mouse) to open in a new window or a new tab. But that's not what I want to do. I want to drag the link to a new window, like I've done for the last few years. But suddenly I can't, because Google mucked it up.

[jonknee]

I am able to drag links in FireFox but not Safari.

I would also suggest trying to command-click on links since that's a really easy way to get them in a new tab or window (if you don't have tabs turned on in Safari they go to a new window). Command-shift-click and it will open behind your current window.

[MichaelBluejay]

Like I keep saying, I know I can open in a new tab or new window, and that is NOT what I'm trying to do.