Any forum thread, article or gallery item where comments go over several pages and you got buttons to navigate to the next or previous page.

For instance this forum thread: https://forums.wincustomize.com/?aid=141378
After all the comments you got previous and next buttons which is not links, but actually divs with javascript to handle the navigation.

Sorry it wasn't clearer in original post.

I'm sorry that you don't like the way we have our paging links setup. But I'm afraid that isnt likely to change.

Because it's more valuable than pure honey?

I really dont know, our designer chose to go in that direction for that portion of the site. In the beginning they were mostly like that. And Im pretty sure it was to get over a Firefox rendering bug. Something to do with div and a tags. We'll have to wait for the exact answer until he has time to reply

I'm not sure why some parts of the forums seem to have those javascript links, and others don't, but I'll join in and just agree here. I HATE/LOATHE/DESPISE javascript "links"... give a real fraggin link, already, so that browsers can function properly!! Like the OP, I often see a link I'm interested in, but not "ready" to navigate to, and simply middle-click it to open up in another tab. Javascript links break this functionality, forcing the user to accept whatever it decides is appropriate (which is usually a popup window, or opens in current window, rather than a tab).

There is a firefox extension called "Smart Middle Click" that claims to fix this problem, but it doesn't seem to always work - and doesn't work on the example the OP gave either.

Updating Java should not affect scripts.
Java and Javascript is two completely different thing.