I click on them and they only open the thread that contains the comment on which I pressed the button. Nothing more, nothing less.
The grey link button takes you to the comment in the same instance as you are currently using.
The rainbow pentagon button takes you to the comment in the hosting instance (which may be the same if you’re browsing a local community).
I don’t know many situations where one would actually click on them—maybe the latter is useful if you’re worried that federation is being slow and you’re not seeing votes or replies through your local instance. But the two links can be useful to copy (by right-clicking, or long-pressing, or whatever you do to copy links in your browser/app), the former if you want to show somebody else what a comment looks like through your home instance and the latter if you want to link to a post/comment normally.
Not OP, but thank you for taking the time to explain :)
I’m guessing the rainbow link is for sharing with someone else, as it’s a direct link to the original post on the original instance it was posted to.
The grey link works for you but wouldn’t work for everyone.
It opens the item (post, comment) in the instance that it was created on. For example I’m on https://sh.itjust.works so if I click on that button of your post it opens this post on https://lemmy.world, which is your instance.
