Have you tried to hold down and drag or double tab and drag? Usually those work. But since you said to drag a link to the tab bar, you have to keep your finger on the link for a few seconds, and then tap "open in new tab".

"open in new tab" means I have to hold the screen for a few seconds and then tap a rather small "open in new tab" button. I was always able to open links in a new tab with a single quick motion, and I'd like to keep it that way. hold and then drag opens the right-click menu, and double-tap drag will just open the link in the current tab.

Wait a minute, are you trying to drag links from one place to another (as your question asks), or are you trying to open the link?

If the latter, some web pages will qualify a link as a link. But for others, they just don't bother.

Highlight the link, right click and select open.

i'm talking about properly tagged links that will open when you click or tap them once. i'm trying to easily open them in a new tab.

right-clicking is a bit inconvenient on a touchscreen because there's an extra delay in long-pressing, and it's very easy to tap the wrong item in the right-click menu.

in the past I always just dragged the links to the tab bar, but dragging a link now selects the text instead. a minor convenience for mouse users, but a big inconvenience for touchscreen users.

Okay. Dragging, by the way, means to move something from one place to another.

Go to the Mozilla Add-ons Web Page {web link} (There’s a lot of good stuff here) and search for what you want.

I already did a search and found a few you may use. But I don't know if these add-ons are compatible to your system. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=link

Here is an example;

URL Link is a small Firefox and Thunderbird extension that allows you o select a non-URL in a mail/news message or web-page, and open it in a browser window.

I know what a link is and what dragging means. none of the add-ons are close to what I need.

I'm not trying to open plain-text URL's, I already have an add-on for that. my problem is with opening links in a new tab.

I found this which is the exact opposite of what I need: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/link-toggler/?src=search I need to make links(actual links! not unclickable URL's!) unselectable.

I'll just give you a step by step example of what I'm trying to do: see this link? I AM A LINK click it with your left mouse button, and don't let go. while still holding your mouse button, move your mouse cursor between a tab and the "new tab" + button. when a little arrow pops up, let go of the mouse button. you'll now see mozilla.org opening in a background tab.

this always worked for me, until a nightly update a few days ago. I can still do it with a mouse by dragging the link straight up. but on a touchscreen if I try to drag the link straight up, my page scrolls. and if I try to drag it sideways(which used to work fine) it selects part of the text "I AM A LINK" instead.

Unfortunately, using a touch pad has it's good points, and it's dad points.

Unless another touch pad user shows up . . . . .

Good luck.

well, i got it fixed... i installed the "stylish" addon and created a user style containing

a {

   -moz-user-select: -moz-none;

}

for all pages. this will revert firefox to the old behaviour(links can't be selected at all) but with the added benefit of being able to easily re-enable selection by disabling the user style through the stylish toolbar button.

and thanks to William Qin and FredMcD. even though you couldn't find the answer for me, you did try to help.

Great News ! ! I hope this information will be helpful for other users. Happy Computing !