Firefox Community Forum

Note: This is also an accessibility issue as those of us with limited or impaired motor control can be inordinately affected in a way that limits our use of Firefox or makes it virtually impossible to use in any use-case more complex than browsing YouTube.

Issue: There are certain, pre-defined, keyboard shortcuts within Firefox whose action is both immediate and irrevocable. Those of us who have limited, or impaired, motor control are particularly susceptible to this, though I have heard anecdotal evidence that other - unimpaired - users suffer from this as well.

Example: There is a particular key combination that I periodically, (accidentally), hit while typing that immediately and irrevocably clears the dialog that I am entering text into - as I am doing here - with no possibility of recovery and no warning that a potentially disastrous action is about to take place.

My specific case, (that is, the most recent instance of my specific case), occurred last night while composing a reply to a topic within the Microsoft Flight Simulator forum addressing a particular, and popular, issue with the sim.

I spent a significant amount of time creating this message - setting paragraph formatting, creating tables, inserting images, carefully crafting the text and such like, that had taken me upwards of an hour to prepare.

While typing - I managed to inadvertently hit a magical "Nuke-and-Destroy" key combination that caused all my lengthy, careful, painstakingly crafted work to immediately vanish with no chance of recovery.

To this very day I still have no idea what combination of keys does this - and if I knew, I would try to suppress it at the keyboard/system level so that Firefox never sees it.

When I searched for a solution to this problem, I found the following article on this site: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../1364260]

In essence, (though it was worded much more politely), the answer was that Mozilla knows about the issue of potentially undesirable "magic" key combinations, has no plans to address it, and if you don't like it it just vacuums being you.

Though this particular key combination might be useful in certain cases, (though I cannot imagine what use-case would benefit from accidentally destroying hours of work), the utterly irrevocable nature of the action - and the absolute lack of any warning whatsoever - makes this a classic case in the annals of horrid user interface design; to the point of being a functional bug even though it works as designed.

A more desirable action would be to:

1. Allow it to be disabled entirely, along with the other potentially annoying/disastrous keyboard shortcuts.
2. Provide a (default) action that warns the user that this action is both immediate and irrevocable and allowing the (default) option to abort the action. Extra credit: Allow the user to permanently disable the offending feature from the dialog.
3. In the unlikely event that a particular user might wish to use this regularly and deliberately, allow the user to bypass the warnings and permanently enable the feature - with the caveat that it vacuums being them if they do something wrong - not unlike the disclaimer when accessing about:config.

I would suggest that this action, and the action of other "magic" keys/key-combinations within Firefox represents a significant burden to those of us who may already be struggling to use a keyboard. Perpetuating this class of issue, especially since it's a known issue and there's no desire whatsoever to accommodate those of us negatively affected by it, borders on both arrogance and ableism.

I would like to humbly place this request at the feet of whomever is responsible for this atrocious policy and earnestly request they reverse this unpleasant and destructive behavior.

Respectfully submitted: Jim Harris.

Added image: [a blank page representing the results of the magic "Nuke-and-Destory" key combination. :wink:]

i couldn't find the "Menu button" which i was supposed to click, to begin changing the name everyone would see. ( i have ALWAYS loved Mozilla - the Firefox graphic - instead of corporate U.S.!) But, tonight has taken OVER AN HOUR to just fill everything out, so my supportive Review of a kind Dentist could be POSTED!!

PLEASE HELP. Honest to the Almighty - i couldn't sleep last night. Am now exhausted.

Important update! On March 14, 2025, a critical root certificate in Firefox will expire. If you’re still using an older version (before Firefox 128 or ESR 115.13+), it’s crucial to update to Firefox 128 or newer to avoid issues with add-ons, DRM-protected content, and other features.

For full details, check out Update Firefox to prevent add-ons issues from root certificate expiration.

If you have questions about the update or need help with the process, this is the place to ask! Whether you’re just starting or you’ve already updated and want to share your experience, we’d love to hear from you.

Let’s come together, share tips, and ensure we’re all prepared. Drop your questions or insights below!

Hello,

I have been experiencing this issue for a while, but only just now noticed it. When I hover over a tab, nothing shows up; no preview, no title, no web address, nothing. I have a few extensions, but uninstalled any that would effect tabs at all, with no change. All other extensions I have had since I switched over to Firefox. I have attempted to search for solutions, and have followed what I found. Multiple support questions here have gotten the answer of going into the config to change the following Boolean variables to be true:

   browser.tabs.hoverPreview.enabled 
   browser.tabs.hoverPreview.showThumbnails 

but when I went to do so, they were both already set to true. I disabled and then re-enabled them just to check, but nothing changed. I have a ridiculous amount of tabs open, but that's the only other thing I can think of that would be causing this issue. Just in case, I am in the process of closing as many as I can.

Any advice or assistance would be appreciated.

Thank you.

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Firefox does always prompt for this when I start it, as it has for many years.

I tried the recommended solution for a similar problem presented here but it didn't help.

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Can anyone recommend what I can do to solve this or at least to investigate it further?

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