I'm really glad they don't! There's so many ways to ask for a link to open in a new tab, but it's much harder to make links open in the same tab once target=_blank is set.
This. Websites should use standard mechanisms by default, and optionally layer user preference stuff on top.
Every time you override some default browser behaviour you risk breaking workflows, harming interoperability and accessibility, etc.
OP would be better served with a grease/tamper/violentmonkey script to alter links (or inject a base target tag, whatever) than lobbying developers to change things. (Or, yknow, learning to use the middle mouse button).
Agreed! Especially since the behavior on clicking a thumbnail isn't very consistent on mobile. Sometimes I click the thumbnail and it expands the image. Sometimes it follows a link. Sometimes going back from a link takes me back to the same Lemmy page I was on, but other times it reloads the page and I can't find the post I was looking at anymore. An option to open all links in a new tab would really help me not lose the post I was looking at when I clicked.
But I wonder, for who is it actually more convenient to override the current lemmy tab with the target?
I understand if it is used like some one-off search engine, to find a particular content and move on. But I assume most people use lemmy more as a permanent place. Wouldn't it benefit more people to open links in a new tab by default?
I highly agree. So many times I click on links thinking I am going to expand an image only for it to navigate away from Lemmy altogether. I'd also like any image that is auto included from a link to another site to expand like a directly uploaded image would expand. Then only clicking on the link is what opens a new tab.
I think a user script or extension could solve that. Im sure a lot of people on lemmy can make one. I hold ctrl while clicking links so this doesn't bother me.