Are you saying that the touchpad works in Firefox even though it is disabled in other applications?

When you used the control panel, did you find a Touchpad tab in your Mouse control panel? That's where I usually check.

I am saying that the touch pad still is active/turned on/ works, even though it is disabled according to the menu screen that I reach through control panel. It works all the time, in any program I am using. My latest attempt is to delete the software (Alps vers. 7.1207.101.225) but I see that has not worked either. I'm a poor typist and need to watch the keyboard and my thumbs touch the pad and send the cursor and current words somewhere other than the line on which I am trying to write. Very frustrating.[

In some extreme cases I have helped people tape a piece of light cardboard over their touchpad... Unless you have two different control panels with competing settings, it really should be disabled systemwide with that one setting.

Had been considering tape but it's so low-tech...on my new laptop! (I'll try it)