Turn off "spatial finder" in debian?

On Mac OS 9 the main file manager program was called the "finder" and it opened a separate window for every folder or directory that you opened. By the time you drilled down 6 levels, 6 windows cluttered your desktop. Each window represented one specific open folder. This metaphor is supposed to help people visualize where they are in an abstract filesystem and make the system more useable. This was called the "spatial finder".

Of course, proponents of silly and annoying metaphors like this are totally wrong, and the Mac moved to the OS X finder where windows exhibit "browsing" behavior instead. There you open a window which represents not a folder, but a changing view into the filesystem which follows you up and down a directory tree. You only need one window, unless you want to view more than one place in the tree simultaneously.

The Gnome file manager "Nautilus" can do either a "spatial" or a "browse" mode. Debian, purists that they are, sets nautilus to spatial mode, while the ever practical Ubuntu guys set it to browse mode. This is one time that I agree with Ubuntu over Debian. Here's how to fix their shortsightedness.

In your nautilus window:
Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Always open in Browser window.

Done! The time you will save closing excess windows will repay the time it took to read this post in about 2-4 minutes of file browsing - I promise!