I am learning JS and stumbled across the window.open() function. When I tested it out, it seems that major browsers like Chrome block the popup window. To me, the major function of open() is no longer useful anymore. So does this function still have any usage in current practice?

I am learning JS and stumbled across the window.open() function. When I tested it out, it seems that major browsers like Chrome block the popup window. To me, the major function of open() is no longer useful anymore. So does this function still have any usage in current practice?

• javascript

• 1 It's very useful, it's the only way to just open a blank window, but the user has to instanciate it by clicking something etc. otherwise it's what's called an "annoying popup", and most browsers try to block those. – adeneo Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 0:12
• As @sg answered, chrome makes a lot of distinctions for actions if they're initiated by a user interaction event (see how it behaves with fullscreen requests). window.open is generally fine if you're using it properly, but <a target="_new"... may be preferable. – Dylan Watt Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 0:13

2 Answers 2

I think Chrome only blocks window.open if it is not preceded by a user action. For example, if you have an element whose onclick attribute is mapped to a function...

function clickedButton() {
  window.open(...);
}

This would work. While this....

function clickedButton(){
  setTimeout(function(){
    window.open(...);
  })
}

would not.

So yes, it is still useful if you are able to set up your application in such a way that popups are only opened in response to a user action.

While it's true that generally opening new windows is a bad idea for reasons mentioned by Jonathan.Brink, I have used them before for authentication. Logging in through Facebook, for example, requires a new tab or a new window to be opened with their URL (iframes don't work). When it hits my website in its callback again, I close the window, and update the (responsive) website with new login information. Closing new tabs feels.... weird.

For some internal applications it may be useful, but the Mozilla docs remend against it:

Generally speaking, it is preferable to avoid resorting to window.open() for several reasons

Here are a few reasons why:

• tab browsing is usually preferred to opening new windows
• may not play nice with extensions/plugins
• heavy on system resources