Guilty as charged but I promise to change! Honestly I never thought it was a big deal.

Woah there - tell us how you really feel :-)

I don't really get this. I don't find annoying when browsing the web that the page opens in new window ...
But everyone know his best ;)

Are you happy with designers making decisions for you? If so where do you draw the line? The user should control the experience not the designer.

Good topic web guy.

Well, I am the designer :)
And now you all got me thinking.. To _blank or not to _blank :)

You see, my point is, no matter do you want to have your visitor stay on your site, visitors can find annoying fact that their current page is being interrupted.
BTW, about 95% of Internet users in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and similar, my targeted area (I live in BiH, so...), don't even know about those functions (CTRL + Click, middle click etc.)..

p.s.
Web guy, I don't see practical use of the 'captcha' below. It's REALLY EASY to make computer see what's on the picture (well, not really what's on it, but by looking into HTML), and write in comment.

Good luck!
Love your blog!

Unfortunately my job forces me to regularly visit sites that open links in new windows, not even just a new tab, but a new window, it's very annoying, and I always end up copying the url and pasting it back into my original window.

Thanks for the compliment Harun. It's encouraging.

Regarding the CAPTCHA, the HTML doesn't give away the answer (the name of the character) - it's only a number each time - like 5.jpg for example - which will fail if you enter just a number anyway. The only way I see it can be beaten is with facial recognition software, or by manual spammers who look for every one of the characters that appear and then use all those names in an automated script.

Unless you've somehow gained access to my PHP script that contains all the answers :-)

I've used this system on my other blog without a single spam hit for over a year now.

Careful there my friend. I've heard many designers quote statistics based on no actual foundation. Even if it was really 95% that doesn't make it right to force control of their experience.

Web guy: I can think of one time when it's probably ok to open a new window and that's if the link advises them first something like...

"Click here to visit Digg (opens in a new window)"

What do you think?

You're preaching to the choir here. Here's one I have bookmarked on the same subject http://www.smackthemouse.com/20030831

I love what I see here Web guy! Is this your own design?

Web Guy,

Probably no one wanted to spam you. If you understand what I'm saying, someone could make a script that binds characters to their numbers, like an array $spam = array(1.jpg =>'superman', 2.jpg =>'spiderman'); and so on.. if you know what I mean..
Well, probably you'll never need some higher security because why would anyone want to spam a nice web guy :) , but I am just saying it's possible :)

Keep up the good work ;)

Yes that's possible, but it goes against general spammer ethos - getting manually involved to begin with. I think the solution then would be to make a random alpha-numeric combo agsinst the images so they're different every time.

In any event I loathe CAPTCHA from a usability perspective so I've tried to make it as easy as possible. If I get some spare time I will see if I can implement the change - or if I start to get spammed - which ever comes first ;-)

well this is become off-topic but i guess this picture confirmation thing is very cool and have special meanings. i mean your are not human if you don't know who mr. spock is? right :D

hi,
in my opinion it is some times very comfortable to open a new tab with target_blank, cause if i click on a link to a new website and the new site opens in the same tab then i must return with the browsers back button and go to the same link and click on it with right mouse button and choose load in new tab.... this is wasting time... click on a link, open new tab and all is fine, cause a i have the old site and the new site open.

Well we have different opinions on this one.. but opening in a new window or tab is a great thing for me.

And this Are you human verification is becoming a challenge.. I thought it was Anakin and then this frog appears whoah.. U Should put anime too if that's the case.

It's such an obvious thing I'm surprised so many people just don't get it. Why force an action on the user? Give them the choice - it makes more sense.

Thanks web guy - you are the man!

Bravo and amen to that.

Nice article, I banned the use of _blank for quite some time on my and customer pages,
altough it is sometimes hard to confince some customers / webdesigners to not use it :-(.

I find it usefull to also provide the external links with an image allowing the user to easily spot that it is actually an external link.
I use the image which is also used on the wikipedia and quit some other websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#External_links

That's reasonably acceptable because the user is at least informed. But it means you can't use the strict doc type because target="_blank" is deprecated. If you're not using xhtml strict though then it's cool in the gang.

I mean that I am not using it at all anymore,
"_blank" is dead to me and I never want it back on my websites or on the websites I create for customers :-)

STRICT + valid is the way I role, I just have to be stubern / poot my foot down and explain it well to why I am disallowing them (my customers) to use that option, even if it will cost me an also stubern / "thinks who know it all" customer and that is sometimes hard :-)

The image I provide is just an extra way of informing the visitors that they are gonna open an external page so they can do with it whatever they want and so they won't get "surprised" by a all new page on visiting :-).

Gotcha.