It’s mostly historical — this attribute goes back to the early days of HTML, when web pages used frames.
Frames allowed a single browser window to display multiple pages at once.
Remember The Matrix — when Neo opens his computer and there are multiple news feeds from different websites moving on the same screen?
That’s kind of like the frames I’m talking about.
Of course, it wasn’t real HTML — it was just a special program made for the movie.
Most likely, it was just a video. 😄
Back in the 1990s, developers used the target attribute to decide which frame a link should open in.
Later, when browsers needed a way to open a link outside all frames,
they introduced a special keyword: _blank, meaning “open in a blank, new window.”
That’s why we still use target="_blank" today —
it’s a legacy from the frame era that browsers continue to support for compatibility.
Today, when we want to build something similar —
like displaying multiple sections or interactive areas on the same page —
we just use CSS and JavaScript, not HTML frames.
A modern example is the X Pro feature on Twitter or X Premium (Fuck Elon)
shows multiple dynamic sections and updates anchor links on the same page.
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