Should clicking a link open a new tab (or window)?

Deep philosophical musings have once again been prompted by a reader, who complains of losing the way when following links from my posts. They open in the same window, and lead to distractions that move further and further away, and then they realize they can’t get back to where they started, right here.

This is an issue because I strongly believe that on the web the user/reader is queen/king. I may gussy things up the way I want, but I shouldn’t do anything to limit the user’s control over their experience, like fixed size fonts and other browser-breaking stuff. (Although, to be honest, there may be a bit of that here.) Anyway, I’ve developed my own surfing technique that suits me, protects me from thoughtless coders who want new windows and tabs to smother me, and that allows me easily to retrace my steps.

I open each link I click in a new tab!

How? By CTRL-clicking (or right-clicking) on the link and choosing Open in new tab (or whatever). There are more complicated solutions, depending on your preferred browser, but simple works best for me. There’s also the History thing in most browsers.