Firefox Community Forum

I've noticed that whenever I press ⌥⇧Space (option-shift-spacebar) in Firefox Developer Edition, it causes the page to refresh.

This behaviour seems to be consistent across devices.

Is there a way to change/disable this behaviour? It is very inconvenient, as it often causes me to accidentally trigger a page refresh when I type an em dash (`—`) in a text input (opt-shift-dash, and then type a space character after it, I'm very likely to hit opt-shift-space by mistake 🙈).

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 find the new split view feature to be great, however I do find some basic keyboard shortcuts missing.

Things like: Focusing the other view Closing a view Splitting

Would be great to have these basic ones.

I love FF and I appreciate the intentions behind the new update for quick/custom search engines in Firefox 140, but I can't help but notice that the new UI for custom search engines requires the user to manually click on various buttons and does not allow one to navigate the process via keyboard only. (Unless I'm missing something?) Prior to this UI update, I was able to fully navigate the drop-down and select my custom search engine of choice using only my arrow keys and enter key. Now, the "search with XYZ" button that pops up if you type the site name is only selectable if you click on it, and cannot be highlighted with the arrow keys.

I am not personally disabled in a way that prevents me from using my trackpad, but having to stop what I'm typing and go out of my way to click on various UI elements is a real stymie in terms of flow, ease of use, and efficiency. At least for me.

Is there some kind of secret key combo I can use? Or an about:config setting to enable keyboard navigation in custom searches? Is it a bug? Or simply the removal of a feature?

I hope I will be able to use my arrow keys to select my search engine again in the future— Thanks

I am interested in going to Windows 11, but I don't know what procedure to use to do that; all the info is confusing To me, the info makes it look like I need to buy another Computer, even though I have a perfectly good operating DELL Inspiron 1 that is not that old, 4 years old with a new hard drive.

Leman H Wilson     [email address]   at 2:15 PM  10-16-25

I am on v130 of Firefox and on some websites it just freezes. I cannot tab across. Even if i refresh nothing. But when i use Chomer all working fine. Read some things on how to correct this but does not work. Any advise?

F12 opens the inspector - How to change th eshortcut of remove it completely

F12 is near the backspace key on my asus laptop and I keep accidently hitting it and would like to remove this fuctionality. I can just use ctrl shift c if I need it

My sanity is at stake here!

Now that my browser is Firefox I cannot get to my email or anything else on my computer. What must I do??? At one point I was signing in to Mozilla Firefox and it said that account already exists. This is very frustrating for an older geriatric. Please send me instructions to get back where I was. My present email address is [edited from public] @gmail.com.

Hi, I was asked if I could contact you by google disability.

I'm having a huge problem creating a channel on youtube with a live.co.uk account when using NVDA.

I press b until I hear account menu button button submenu, pres enter or space, then arrow down to create channel and press enter. Nothing seams to happen.

Google disability has shown me a couple of video or audio files proving that it can be done, they've even said that they tried creating an account with an outlook account, what live.co.uk is called now from my understanding.

SO I'm really confused as to why they can do it and I can't.

I can't show you with OBS because it messes with my screen readers speech so if you have another way I can show you; please let me know.

I've already tried the following, suggested by disability support: 1. uninstalling and reinstalling firefox.

2. making sure addons are disabled, the only one I left enabled was a volume booster but I doubt that would be the issue.

3. Setting NVDA back to factory settings and disabling all addons.

This has been confusing me on and off for up to a year now.

I'm trying to add the Dashlane extension to my laptop running Windows 10 or 11, and Firefox. But I cannot do this as my computer is in safe mode (troubleshoot mode?) How do I get out of this mode so I can add Dashlane extension. Thanks for your help;. Jonnie

'I am posting this for a third time, because I am absolutely sure it is caused by the latest Firefox update.

I am typing this into Notepad and copy/pasting it to the text box on the site.

I am legally blind, and I am very dependant on the Windows Magnifier. Yesterday I took the latest Firefox update and after installing it, the Windows Magnifier will no longer follow the text cursor on web pages rendered in Firefox. It will follow typing in the address bar and the search bar on the task bar, but it will not on web pages rendered in Firefox.

I do not have this problem with Chrome or Librewolf.

I had made two earlier posts with no response from Support. I have been trying desperately to figure out what waws going on as I was moving links, bookmarks & passwords into Librewolf.

I tried to refresh Firefox. It didn't work. I tried safe mode. It didn't work. I even tried a different profile. It didn't work. I even tired uninstall & reinstall Firefox. It didn't work.

I even called the Microsoft Disability desk and had them check my magnifier settings, and they are fine, and yet even if I toggled them on & of--it still didn't work.

So finally, out of desperation, I did the dreaded System Restore.

I rolled it back to August 18th and sat and waited.

And though I had to relog into Firefox--it worked!

and i have been surfing happily all evening until I loaded the Spotify player page and it wouldn't play. Okay this was weird because I had been using it all week and suddenly it wouldn't play. I did a search, and apparently it wasn't just me. I opened the About Firefox and there it was--the dreaded update.

Believe me, I really didn't want to restaret the browser, but it was doomed to happen anyway.

And guess what--the Windows Magnifier view won't follow the text cursor in web pages rendered in Firefox--Again!

The Spotify player plays again but.....

If you don't believe me, open the Windows Magnifier, dock it on your task bar, and try to type into a web page. The view just goes cockeyed.

So yes, the update has a bug. And for all the people who are visually handicapped and use the Windows Magnifier we are cursing you right now and hoping for a quick fix before we all have to move to Chrome.

You sighted people have no idea how frustrating this is.

At least I'm glad it's not my PC.

But if it doesn't get fixed, I"m absolutely done with this browser. It is now unusable for people with visual disabilities.

Good luck.

Thank you. '

Back in the days it was always possible to change Proxy port number (or, I believe, any other numeric value) by moving the mouse scrolling wheel when the cursor is placed inside the related field. I don't know whose intelligent decision it was to disable this functionality, but it has gone since the last update (v130.0). Now the window scrolls regardless of the cursor position. It looks like it works fine, but for those who are used to this kind of functionality, it turns out to be inconvenient.

Please, roll this back before it's too late :) Thank you.