Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Disable touch screen scrolling

more options

I have found a ton of results describing how to force Firefox to scroll like a touch screen. Let me start by being clear: I want to do the opposite of this. I have a page which touch scrolls properly, but this is causing problems.

I use a web page which submits e-contracts, and they require signatures; I access this page from a Dell XPS 18 tablet. The problem is that the signature field is extremely finicky. If you attempt to sign, the page scrolls, and the signature field remains blank. If you tap it just right, and then begin signing afterwards, you can select the field, and it works. The problem is that it is so finicky, it took me several minutes to get the feel for the right touch/timing of the thing. This does not work for customers. If I plug in a regular mouse, it works as it should; click and drag highlights text, rather than scrolling, and click and drag within the signature box signs.

I use Firefox for this task because of its high degree of customizability; I was able (fairly simply) to get everything to display just the way I wanted it. On that note, I'm hoping there is some way to disable touch scrolling. I tried using the grab and drag add-on to subvert its own intended purpose, but it doesn't appear to have an option to do this. If anyone can point me in the direction of a setting or add-on which can do this, I will be very grateful. Ideally, I would like to disable it on this particular page only, but disabling it globally would also be fine.

I have found a ton of results describing how to force Firefox to scroll like a touch screen. Let me start by being clear: I want to do the opposite of this. I have a page which touch scrolls properly, but this is causing problems. I use a web page which submits e-contracts, and they require signatures; I access this page from a Dell XPS 18 tablet. The problem is that the signature field is extremely finicky. If you attempt to sign, the page scrolls, and the signature field remains blank. If you tap it just right, and then begin signing afterwards, you can select the field, and it works. The problem is that it is so finicky, it took me several minutes to get the feel for the right touch/timing of the thing. This does not work for customers. If I plug in a regular mouse, it works as it should; click and drag highlights text, rather than scrolling, and click and drag within the signature box signs. I use Firefox for this task because of its high degree of customizability; I was able (fairly simply) to get everything to display just the way I wanted it. On that note, I'm hoping there is some way to disable touch scrolling. I tried using the grab and drag add-on to subvert its own intended purpose, but it doesn't appear to have an option to do this. If anyone can point me in the direction of a setting or add-on which can do this, I will be very grateful. Ideally, I would like to disable it on this particular page only, but disabling it globally would also be fine.

Chosen solution

Since submitting my original post, I have spent an inordinate amount of time delving into about:config with nothing but an incomplete knowledge base article to guide me, and, after wasting a ton of time playing with the mousewheel settings, I discovered gestures.enable_single_finger_input, set it to false, and voila! Problem solved. If there's ever anyone trying to accomplish this for whatever reason, I hope you find this useful.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (1)

more options

Chosen Solution

Since submitting my original post, I have spent an inordinate amount of time delving into about:config with nothing but an incomplete knowledge base article to guide me, and, after wasting a ton of time playing with the mousewheel settings, I discovered gestures.enable_single_finger_input, set it to false, and voila! Problem solved. If there's ever anyone trying to accomplish this for whatever reason, I hope you find this useful.