Firefox question: How do I make new tabs load in the background?

Factual Questions
1

Windows 7 user here

Many times I highlight text then right click. An option allows me to google the highlighted text. When I do so, the focus window shifts to the newly opened tab. How do I change it so that the tab will load, but I remain focused on the current window

I tried googling it but it didn’t work. I typed about:config in the Firefox brower url area. It gave me a list of things I can change about Windows. I changed both of the following to the opposite of whatever setting they were currently then closed the browser.

When I opened the browser again, it was still doing that thing! FYI, I didn’t reset the whole computer, just turned off Firefox. But its a browser thing, it shouldn’t require me to restart right? Why would it, I’m not changing the registry or rebooting, I just want to make the browser act differently.

2

Use the TabMix Plus addon for Firefox. You can control all tab behavior then, including getting tabs to open in the background.

3

Thanks!

4

In Firefox open the Options dialog and select the Tabs tab. There is a checkbox for “When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately.” Try unchecking that.

I have the opposite problem in Chrome - opening a new tab always opens it behind the current tab, and I can’t find a way to make the new tab open in front.