Firefox drives my friend to lunacy

[abrianb]

I recently convinced a friend of mine to remove windows and install Ubuntu. He says that Ubuntu is faster, less buggy, he likes Gnomes clean desktop. It would seem to be love at first boot, but no. A quirk in firefox drives him crazy. What is it that makes a life of shuffling along to the thorazine beat or worse yet reverting to windows seem likely? When he uses the back button, firefox does not return to the same place he had previously scrolled to. I don't know how to turn this function on. It just started doing it on its own on my machines. I know that very old versions of firefox did not have this feature. Firefox added it years ago. He has the latest greatest firefox. I tried reinstalling firefox but it did not work. Can anyone tell me how to turn this feature on?

[Gone fishing]

I know this doesn't answer the question, but there is Google Chrome.

[coffeecat]

Can anyone tell me how to turn this feature on?

Yes.

It's turned on by default in the Windows version of Firefox, but off in the Linux version. Which is #**&#%# ridiculous!

Type 'about:config' in the address bar. OK the nonsense that comes up next and then type 'back' in the filter. Look for the line 'browser.backspace_action' and change the numerical value to zero. Restart Firefox. Use backspace key to your heart's content.

It just started doing it on its own on my machines.

Hmmm. Are you sure?

[lovinglinux]

Yes.

It's turned on by default in the Windows version of Firefox, but off in the Linux version. Which is #**&#%# ridiculous!

Type 'about:config' in the address bar. OK the nonsense that comes up next and then type 'back' in the filter. Look for the line 'browser.backspace_action' and change the numerical value to zero. Restart Firefox. Use backspace key to your heart's content.

For more info about the above recommendation and other options see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action

Hmmm. Are you sure?

If the buttons suddenly doesn't do anything, then it could be this problem/solution.

[abrianb]

Thanks for the responses so far. The problem is not with the "Backspace key" on the keyboard. The problem is with the "Go back one page" Button on the firefox browsers upper left corner. It goes back one page, it just does not return to the same place he had scrolled to when he was last on the page. To demonstrate, google something, scroll to the middle of the page and click the link. Once the link has opened click the "go back one page button". Firefox takes me back to the middle of the google search page. Firefox takes my friend to the TOP of the google search page. How do I make his Firefox work like mine?

[lovinglinux]

Thanks for the responses so far. The problem is not with the "Backspace key" on the keyboard. The problem is with the "Go back one page" Button on the firefox browsers upper left corner. It goes back one page, it just does not return to the same place he had scrolled to when he was last on the page. To demonstrate, google something, scroll to the middle of the page and click the link. Once the link has opened click the "go back one page button". Firefox takes me back to the middle of the google search page. Firefox takes my friend to the TOP of the google search page. How do I make his Firefox work like mine?

Do what cofeecat suggested. Firefox comes with value 2 for that setting by default. Changing to 0 will allow you to go back to same page scrolling location.

[shae]

That is working properly for me. You should check to see if you changed something by renaming your mozilla profile and trying it with a clean one.

mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla-backup

[lovinglinux]

That is working properly for me. You should check to see if you changed something by renaming your mozilla profile and trying it with a clean one.

mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla-backup

That is extreme for this situation. Just need to change the setting suggested by cofeecat.

BTW, you don't need to change the ~/.mozilla folder, since Firefox profiles are stored under ~/.mozilla/firefox.

[abrianb]

I tried setting the value to 1,2,3,4,5 it had no effect on the "go back one page" button in the upper left hand corner of firefox. It does change the behavior of the backspace button on my keyboard.

[lovinglinux]

I tried setting the value to 1,2,3,4,5 it had no effect on the "go back one page" button in the upper left hand corner of firefox. It does change the behavior of the backspace button on my keyboard.

It's 0, not 1 or 2 or 3...