Where did you install Firefox from? Help Mozilla uncover 3rd party websites that offer problematic Firefox installation by taking part in our campaign. There will be swag, and you'll be featured in our blog if you manage to report at least 10 valid reports!

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

How do I return to the "parent" source after following a link in a page source?

  • 4 replies
  • 14 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by thenitbit

more options

After following a link in a page source, I would like to be able to switch back to the 'parent' source. The only option I found is to close the source completely and open the page source once again. A "back" option would be useful here...

After following a link in a page source, I would like to be able to switch back to the 'parent' source. The only option I found is to close the source completely and open the page source once again. A "back" option would be useful here...

Chosen solution

I just tried viewing page source and the back/forward buttons on my mouse worked.

If that is not an option for you, another possibility is to set View Page Source to use a external application of your choice that does have back/forward buttons. The Dafizilla ViewSourceWith can be used to set an external application to view the source. You can also set an external application by modifying 2 hidden preferences, the following 2 links show what to change:

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (4)

more options

Firefox has back & forward buttons, if they are missing see Navigation buttons like back, home, bookmarks and reload are missing.

more options

Thank you for the fast answer, Tony! Apparently you misinterpreted my question (or I was not clear enough describing it) because my question has nothing to do with normal surfing. The back & forward buttons are present and fully functional in my browser.

With "page source" I meant the information that can be reached by pressing Ctrl+U. Some page sources contain links to e.g. js scripts. When I click on such a link, indeed the source of the script is shown. At that point there is no turning back to the original page source where the link was in...

My browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0E)

more options

Chosen Solution

I just tried viewing page source and the back/forward buttons on my mouse worked.

If that is not an option for you, another possibility is to set View Page Source to use a external application of your choice that does have back/forward buttons. The Dafizilla ViewSourceWith can be used to set an external application to view the source. You can also set an external application by modifying 2 hidden preferences, the following 2 links show what to change:

more options

Thanks again, TonyE! Thanks to your post I discovered the right-click menu. My problem is solved!