As far as I remember, it has nothing to do with the OS, nor with the browser
or the desktop manager but with the windows manager. In 1999 (perhaps 2000)
when Gnome was to be loaded carefully one package at a time, NextStep or
Nautilus windows manager (I can't remember which, perhaps a third one)
introduced fixed workspaces, as many as 64 possible ( it was really great to
open 64 pictures in GIMP), and (later?) the possibility to choose a workspace
for a given application, e.g workspace 2 for the default browser, 3 for the
mail, etc... In 2006 (perhaps before) this was introduced in MacOs under the
name of Spaces, also fixed. Then, in MacOS and Linux (which was first?)
worspaces became dynamic, i.e created as needed, and then couldn't be assigned
to a given application; it seems nevertheless that an application tries to go
to its later place.
Happily enough, I never tried Windows (besides me, a poster says "This
is
an air conditioned room, don't open Windows®".
