658343 - link destination modifier keys not applied on mouse-up

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, defect)

Description

[Aaron Davies]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.16) Gecko/2011032405 Firefox/3.6.16ms1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.16) Gecko/2011032405 Firefox/3.6.16ms1

When ctrl- or ctrl-shift-clicking on a link to open it in a new (background or foreground) tab, the detection of the modifier keys used appears to happen when the link is followed, not when the mouse click occurs. This is problematic if you open enough tabs quickly enough to cause significant browser slowdown.

Here's an example scenario: I'm reading a news site like Reddit or Hacker News, and I ctrl-shift-click on 20 links in rapid succession to start them all loading in the background. 19 tabs with active fetching going on is all my computer is able to handle at the moment, so the Firefox UI becomes unresponsive for about 10 seconds. If I ctrl-shift-clicked the 20th link during the time the browser was unresponsive (completing the click--i.e. releasing the mouse button), when Firefox becomes responsive again, that 20th link will open in the *current* tab, not a 20th background tab.

The only workaround so far that I've found is to pay careful attention when doing this kind of thing, and if I see that the browser has become unresponsive, to hold the mouse button down on the current click, only releasing it once I see it become responsive again.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a bunch of background tabs quickly until the UI locks up briefly


Actual Results:  
the last link clicked will open in the current tab

Expected Results:  
the last link clicked should open in a new background tab