jQuery .click() is triggering when selecting/highlighting text

That’s because a click is a mousedown followed by a mouseup. My suggestion is to check getSelection inside the click handler. If it’s set, then you selected something, else you just clicked.

$('#click').click(function() {
    var sel = getSelection().toString();
    if(!sel){
        alert("clicked");
    }
});​

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/ym5JX/3/