Monday, November 19th, 2007
Making the backspace key in Firefox a shortcut key to go back in Ubuntu!
Coming from Windows a few months ago, one of the things I took for granted was the backspace key being a shortcut key for the back button on my web browser - Firefox.
Once I shifted over to Ubuntu, this shortcut was missing from a default installation. If you want to replicate how the Firefox web browser on Windows has mapped the backspace key to go back a page on linux based systems, do the following:
- Open up firefox
- In the address bar, type about:config *this should give you a payload of preferences going down the page*
- Once this happens, enter the word “backspace” in the filter field, this should narrow your entry to one that says browser.backspace_action.
- Double click on the entry and change the value to 0 instead of 1.
The change should be immediate, so if you now press the [Backspace] key, it functions as a back button. I must have done this a several times when I was installing and reinstalling distributions as I messed around with my installations, but kept forgetting how to do it. :)
So this is more a quick note than any ground breaking hack.
on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 4:12 am:
Sweet. thanks for that. it was bugging me.
on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 5:45 am:
Finally! Why is this not done by default? We don’t need another page up button.
Thanks loads!
on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am:
You’re welcome guys :) glad to have helped out.
on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 5:07 pm:
thank you very much, was one of the things i was beggining to hate about ubuntu firefox, i just want my firefox to be as fast a windows firefox when viewing hi5 pages, loaded with flash objects :(
on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 8:15 am:
thank you very much
on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 10:08 am:
you’re welcome guys, I have the same probs as you with flash carlos, I’ll look it up - there should be a solution somewhere :) Thank you both for leaving feedback
on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm:
quick & helpful, your page, this. :)
on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 am:
Thanks a bunch - this had been bugging me ever since I switched to Ubuntu!
on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 7:39 am:
Wow thanks!! :D Despite over 6 months in Ubuntu, I *still* found myself pressing backspace to go back, so this really helps! I still wonder what shortcut people use otherwise… but now it doesn’t matter for me :P
on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:38 am:
fantastic…i missed it very much. thanks!
on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 4:16 pm:
Thanks! That was really annoying..
Rick
on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 2:37 am:
thank YOU !!!! :D