Even if it were deprecated, I would probably keep using target="_blank" it as long as it worked.<p>I feel that an attribute that says, "Hey, web browser, it would be great if you opened this thing in a new window, tab, or whatever" is fundamentally superior to binding some JavaScript code to the link's click handler.
OK so it's been pointed out to me that HTML5 didn't deprecate target=_blank like I thought. It was just XHTML that removed it, and my method uses HTML5 'data-' attributes. So it's pretty irrelevant, just carry on using target=_blank I guess?