Disable That Irritating AutoScroll Feature in Firefox
So you try to middle click on a link on a page and miss the link… then the round “Auto Scroll” icon shows up and suddenly the page is moving around and scrolling all by itself. It drives me crazy, so when it was mentioned in the latest Coding Horror article I figured I would write it up in case anybody else wants to disable it.
Note: You can’t disable the same thing in Internet Explorer as far as I can tell. If anybody knows of a way, let me know.
Open up the Options dialog through Tools \ Options, click on the Advanced tab/button, and then uncheck the “Use autoscrolling” box.
The change should be immediate, no need to restart.
Note: This should work on Firefox 2 or 3.
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If you’re using MS Intellipoint, you can redefine the function of the middle key (in my case, clicking the scroll wheel) to something other than Auto-scroll (in my case, Double-Click).
That’s so simple, but yet somehow I never knew it was there…
I usually use Internet Explorer and it drives me crazy, but I might switch to Firefox now that I know I can disable it.
thanks!
This shows again: men don’t read manuals.
Haven’t found this option till your blogpost *happy*
Hi You can disable the same thing in Internet Explorer as well. Go to Control Panel, then Mouse, then to Activities tab. Make sure Turn On ClickLock is unchecked. Try This…….Cheers
Good tip! In addition to this, if you type about:config in Firefox’s address bar and double-click the middlemouse.paste entry, the middle mouse button will paste in Firefox, like it does in the UNIX world.
@ Kum Sharma, This did not work for me ….. I haven’t got that option, I am running vista 32BIT with a basic wired mouse.
ClickLock doesn’t work that way, it’s for selecting text or dragging things without having to hold down the mouse button.
If you have a wheel mouse, IE automatically enables autoscroll.
How did I not spot that! this has been irritating me for ages!
Very good. Though, any idea why whenever I middle-click on anywhere on a page Firefox attempts to open whatever text happens to be on the clipboard at that moment, and more often than not produces a ‘This URL is invalid and cannot be loaded’ message?
Do you know a similar thing for Opera?
I never realized how much I was annoyed until you told me how to fix it. I was in ‘autoscroll by accident’ denial.
Now I’m cured. Thanks.
Thanks for the tip mate. It is really annoying and should be disabled by default.
:O I love auto scroll! How could you guys want to take it away. It’s so incredably useful!
I use autoscroll all the time.. in fact mine’s been inadvertently disabled thanks to a plug-in, which I have now uninstalled for messing with my autoscroll settings.. been trying to figure out what was up with it but forgot there was a setting for it in options.. dohh
Thanks.
o/
Cheers mate ! ,
that was driving me fecking crazy , was about to buy a new mouse ! , so simple yet never thought to look .
THANK YOU!!!! What a relief — that was SO IRRITATING. I vaguely remembered stumbling across this years ago, but I couldn’t remember what to do. How do people work without being able to middleclick their wheel/ball?!?! If I couldn’t open links in a new tab, with one hand, and without right-clicking — I’d go bonkers.
Thanks again!!!!
Can this be achieved in the Opera web browser?
Why does my computer scroll up and down by itself it drives me crazy like now when im typing it scrolls by itself why and what can i do to fix it ? Thanks
Mike ….
Logitech MouseWare drivers can change the function of middle button of mice even if yours are not made by Logitech.
Just google Logitech MouseWare for the drivers.
Thank you so much for the guide!..
I’ve been frustrated with this problem for few weeks…
Thanks a lot!
Do the exact same for micosoft, only autoscroll is alled smoothscroll
Thank you so much! This feature was driving me mad – I thought my computer trackpad was broken, and found your site through a google search.
Thank you. I used these steps to turn the useful feature on (it was off on mine).
Thank you so much for this. This has been bugging the s#@% out of me forever.
THANK YOU!! I have been irritated by this for weeks. Now it’s gone. Hooray!!
Not much point to setting wheel button to double-click as double and triple-click are easily done with the left mouse button.
The real value of this button is when it is set to Enter through the system control panel for mouse, and it is universal for all applications. May have to override Firefox specifically, but the reason that Firefox has been an exception was to make forward and back buttons work in the past.
Gets rid of the annoying and useless automatic scrolling, and means you can use the keyboard a little less on dialogs that that have a default for such as [Ok] [Cancel], in which case you hit Enter. Also good for location-bar (address-bar) and search box, and other form entry by simply hitting Enter no need for a toolbar button or need to use the Enter key if you hand is already on the mouse after cut and paste, or drop-down selection.
Just a matter of designers saying we have a button with no function, let’s demonstrate auto-scrolling and make it the default so people learn about it. But as a feature it’s not too practical.
Had expected the website I entered to show up a link to my name, here is a relevant webpage,
which also includes both Keyboard Shortcuts and Mouse Shortcuts across 5 browsers (Windows):
. Firefox and other Browser Keyboard Shortcuts (Comparison Table)
. http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie.....yboard.htm
Completely the opposite for me. I love the autoscrolling feature. Can’t live without it for a few websites. Most notably Twitter with Endless Tweets (Greasemonkey script) enabled.
-Arjun
Ok…I’m just trying to get this generic HP USB Optical 2 button Mouse with scroll wheel (& button) working to where the “scroll wheel” button can be set to double-click anything within Windows Vista (Browser, Windows Explorer, Files, etc.). Microsoft Inellipoint doesn’t work (uninstalled it). I guess I’ll try the Logitech Mouseware…By the way, HP’s web site is zero help…they don’t even offer the driver. It’s a wired optical USB mouse (2 button with scroll wheel).