[javascript] window.open(url, '_blank'); not working on iMac/Safari

I've build a web page that let's you select a page name from a drop down list and then transfers the browser to that page. The code that does the transfer is

if (url){
    window.open(url, '_blank');
} 

where "url" is the page selected.

A console log just before the window.open line prints something like:

    executing: window.open(http://www.mywebsite.com/44/threats.html, '_blank')

and then the browsers opens the page in a new tab.

This works fine on Windows 7 for all the browsers, including Safari.

On an iMac it works for Firefox but not for Safari.

Does anyone know why iMac/Safari won't do this?

You can't rely on window.open because browsers may have different policies. I had the same issue and I used the code below instead.

let a = document.createElement("a");
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.style = "display: none";
a.href = <your_url>;
a.download = <your_fileName>;
a.click();
document.body.removeChild(a);

Taken from the accepted answers comment by Steve on Dec 20, 2013:

Actually, there's a very easy way to do it: just click off "Block popup windows" in the iMac/Safari browser and it does what I want.

To clarify, when running Safari on Mac OS X El Capitan:

1. Safari -> Preferences
2. Security -> Uncheck 'Block pop-up windows'

The correct syntax is window.open(URL,WindowTitle,'_blank') All the arguments in the open must be strings. They are not mandatory, and window can be dropped. So just newWin=open() works as well, if you plan to populate newWin.document by yourself. BUT you MUST use all the three arguments, and the third one set to '_blank' for opening a new true window and not a tab.

Safari is blocking any call to window.open() which is made inside an async call.

The solution that I found to this problem is to call window.open before making an asnyc call and set the location when the promise resolves.

var windowReference = window.open();

myService.getUrl().then(function(url) {
     windowReference.location = url;
});

window.location.assign(url) this fixs the window.open(url) issue in ios devices

To use window.open() in safari you must put it in an element's onclick event attribute.

For example: <button class='btn' onclick='window.open("https://www.google.com", "_blank");'>Open Google search</button>

There's a setting in Safari under "Tabs" that labeled Open pages in tabs instead of windows: with a drop down with a few options. I'm thinking yours may be set to Always. Bottom line is you can't rely on a browser opening a new window.