Why do feed & Promoted by MN links open on new pages?

[EmpressaurusOfCats]

I’m using Chrome on an iPhone 7.

When I click on My Feed or Promoted by MN links, it would be simpler if they opened in the same tab so I can just go back after reading them - otherwise I end up with multiple MN tabs open.

Hi there @EmpressaurusOfCats. Thanks for the message. I don't know if there's a reason why to be honest but I'll see if I can find out. Will pass on your thoughts about it too.

Thanks @HebeMumsnet .

Hello @EmpressaurusOfCats thanks for posting. It's been designed this way to give users more control over the threads they're viewing.

Basically, if we hadn't made it open in a new tab, after you read the thread, when you clicked on "back", it would take you back to your feed, but because it's "live" - ie refreshed with the most recently updated threads - you'd find a whole new set of threads, not the same threads as appeared before you clicked. We know that a lot of users want to work their way down a list of threads and read a lot of them - and so we think opening in a new tab is the simplest way to enable them to do that. If you want to see new threads you can refresh at any time, but the feed stays static until you're ready to do that. Also, just to note - on safari on iPhone, if you do hit back it will close the new tab for you and take you back to the feed page.

Hope that explains things.

Thanks @YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet, that’s a really helpful explanation.