I have a list of users displayed in the table and each users has link which is displayed and can be navigated to.
Always prepend your absolute external links with protocol or // shortcut for http:// OR https:// depending on your app's protocol.
<div class="inline-icon-text">
<small class="text-muted d-md-none mr-3">Link</small>
<a [attr.href]="'//' + candidate.url" target="_blank" [title]="candidate.url">
<i class="material-icons">open_in_new</i>
</a>
</div>
Browsers treat URLs as relative by default to facilitate in-app navigation.
As a side note, this behavior is not Angular-specific; other frameworks and plain sites behave exactly the same