Comment 12 for bug 481541

Another solution is to land this patch and remove the “select” options. I hate
to say this, but I tend to like this option, as it will not result in a string
change. Most users probably won’t miss the fact that tabs can load in the
background (majority are coming from window based browsing where you can’t
really load windows in the background) and right now the wording is confusing.
Of course this will anger some users (please note: I too like the prefs), but
this would be a perfect time for an extension to step up and fill the void.
Remember, it will still be a settable pref in about:config and we can easily add
it back after Firefox 1.0.

I also want to point out that it’s trivial to add a pref to regulate whether
links loaded from left click/external applications load in the background.