Referrer not sent when opening a new tab on same origin

• Component: Page Loading
• Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE

[Daniel Compton]

In Safari, if you open a new tab (Cmd+click on a link) to a page in the same origin, the referrer is not provided, either in headers to the server, or in the JS context under `document.referrer`.

In Chrome and Firefox, the referrer is available to new tabs on the same origin.

I searched and couldn't find any bugs or documentation of this behaviour. I also tried disabling Safari's "Prevent Cross-Site tracking" but there was no change.

Tested in Safari 17.4.1 and STP Release 199 (Safari 18.0, WebKit 19619.1.22.5).

Reproduction steps:

1. Open https://news.ycombinator.com (Referrer-policy: origin)
2. Click a link to a comment thread
3. Run `document.referrer` in the developer console
4. Observe the result is "https://news.ycombinator.com"
5. Go back to https://news.ycombinator.com
6. Middle click on a link to a comment thread
7. Run `document.referrer` in the developer console
8. Observe the result is ""

In Chrome and Firefox, in step 8, they provide a referrer.

I would expect identical referrer behaviour whether a page is loaded via an in-page navigation, or via a new tab, or at the very least, sending the origin.

[Alexey Proskuryakov]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 234511 ***