Argh. Not sure if it's an update to Chrome or an update to Ghostery, but middle-click to open a link in a new tab is now hitting Chrome's pop-up blocker instead of actually opening.
@KelsonV Might be Ghostery apparently.
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=918268
You're not the only person seeing this
https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/aed4ot/chrome_treating_middleclicks_as_popups/
@sohkamyung Yeah, turning off Ghostery stops it from happening. Not a long-term solution, though!
@KelsonV According to this Android Police article, Google is aware of the issue and working on a fix.
@sohkamyung On one hand, it's good to know they're aware of it. On the other...a server-side change on Google's part shouldn't impact things happening on *other* sites. Middle-clicking Google's search results? Fine. Middle-clicking links in my own blog? Shouldn't be affected. Something doesn't add up.
Maybe what they mean is they're remotely changing config options or something...which doesn't inspire trust either.
@sohkamyung So if anyone's still following this, it turned out to be an experimental configuration setting in Chrome that Google turned on remotely for A/B testing.
Basically they have features that aren't quite ready, but that they put in the release version of the browser behind a config setting, and when the browser launches, it checks a server-side list of which experimental features it should turn on or leave off.
I can understand the logic, but it's also creepy.
@sohkamyung I would hope not!