Open external links in new tab by default

[fastlane]

Open external links in new tab by default

[danasilver]

The closest python-markdown extension that inserts target="_blank" is markdown-newtab, but it does it for all links. We could fork this and add a check for 'http' in elem.get('href') when it decides whether to add the attribute.

[danasilver]

I forked markdown-newtab and added an external_only option as described above.

[mfurtak]

@i2amsam Dropped this in chat the other day. I don't know that it's relevant to a static site like this, but it seems worth mentioning: https://mathiasbynens.github.io/rel-noopener/ (talks about target=_blank vulnerabilities)

[KrauseFx]

@mfurtak

Also we have to make sure to properly set the tag to not give control over the tab to the external page

Yeah, that's what I meant, but couldn't remember it was called rel-noopener, definitely important 👍

[danasilver]

That's a really interesting vulnerability I didn't know about. I think it's still valid for static sites. That makes more sense @KrauseFx; I figured you meant opening in the background like Command + Click does.

Could modify the markdown-newtab to add rel="noopener" as well if that's a good enough mitigation.

[janpio]

Is this still relevant? It's pretty common nowadays for links to just be opened in the same page/tab, and people using middle click or right-click -> new tab for this.