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Fix Firefox Backspace to Take You to the Previous Page December 21, 2006

Posted by Carthik in bugsquashing, snippets, ubuntu.
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In a surprising development that seems really strange and unnecessary, Firefox 2.0 won’t go to the previous page when I press the “backspace” button on the keyboard. I have grown used to this over the period I have used Firefox. The fact that I can’t use backspace the way I am used to has been annoying me no end. So I decided to dig a little deeper.

The feature was removed to fix a bug. The bug that was caused by fixing the previous bug, which is that the backspace does not behave like it should has been fixed too (Thank heavens!)

But then, until the bug fix propagates to a firefox build available on Ubuntu, one has to resort to a little scratching to fix the matter. Here’s how you resurrect the backspace button in Firefox 2.0 (current as of this date):

Type “about:config” in the address bar of Firefox and press Enter.
`Filter` for ‘browser.backspace_action’ and change its value to 0 (zero).

Comments»

1. Dave Taylor - December 21, 2006

Thanks for this. I’ve just about stopped myself from going for the backspace key – time to re-learn. (OpenSUSE 10.2 user)

2. Eric Lake - December 21, 2006

Cool. That has been bugging me for a while. The backspace works on my XP box but it didn’t on my Ubuntu machine.

3. elliot - December 21, 2006

This is really helpful, thanks for posting it!

4. housetier - December 21, 2006

yes, thank you :-=

5. tuxicity - December 21, 2006

Great info !

6. tuxicity - December 21, 2006

Only…. In my Ubuntu backspace works fine on Firefox, could it have to do with the fact that I tried mint-linux 2.1beta and still have it on my box ?

Any other mint-users who can confirm this ?

7. Greg M. Johnson - December 21, 2006

The feature WAS a bug. Good riddance!

8. Eric Lake - December 21, 2006

I just install the new Bea version of Mint that came out yesterday and this patch / fix is included.

9. børge - December 21, 2006

Thank you!
This has been bothering me a lot too!

10. mike - December 21, 2006

Ugh no! I rely on backspace being the opposite of the spacebar for scrolling!

11. Daniel - December 21, 2006

BTW Alt+Left arrow is also equivalent to the back button.

12. xiojason - December 21, 2006

I found backspace’s behavior of going back to the previous page an incredibly bad user experience problem. I’ll be rather disappointed if it returns.

13. Chuck - December 21, 2006

I didn’t even realize it was broken til you told me. Thankfully(!) I use mouse gestures as primary means of navigation on my Ubuntu machine.

It seems like already there are a bazillion different ideas of what people expect backspace to do in their browser. This may turn into a problem that won’t go away.

14. britt - December 21, 2006

sweet, back to normal! ctrl + [ was getting old

15. roger - December 21, 2006

this was fixed in version 2.0.0.1 install this version it fix all problem in simple way

16. Baby Jebus - December 22, 2006

Backspace works for me without doing anything in firefox.

17. slibuntu - December 22, 2006

Great fix, i’m linking to this on my blog!

18. Fix firefox backspace « Ubuntu Newbie - December 22, 2006

[...] Some of you may have noticed that in Firefox 2, backspace no longer brings you to the last page you were on, but you can change it, ubuntonista has posted a way to fix it on his blog, here. It works and is really handy! [...]

19. Estratégia Livre » Blog Archive » Ubuntu Blog: A tecla backspace no Firefox 2.0 - December 22, 2006

[...] Muita gente, inclusive eu, achou estranho com o que acontece (ou o que não acontece) quando se aperta a tecla backspace no Firefox 2.0: não se volta para a página anterior. Uma postagem no Ubuntu Blog informa os motivos (a funcionalidade foi cortada em uma correção de bugs) e ajuda a configurar o recurso novamente. Os passos são simples: digite “about:config” na barra de endereços e procure pela opção “browser.backspace_action“, trocando seu valor para zero. [...]

20. Sionide - December 22, 2006

That is amazing… Thanks very much.

21. Ubuntu Noob - December 23, 2006

YES!!

thank you god!
I’ve been annoyed by this forever, thank you so much for helping me fix it!

22. xabbott - December 24, 2006

thank you for this tip.

23. justinas - December 26, 2006

thank you for this fix!

24. Janne Hokkanen - December 30, 2006

Thanks, you saved my nerves :) I hitted the backspace thousand times for nothing.

25. Nils - January 3, 2007

Thank you so much. And happy new year.

26. Kodiak - January 9, 2007

Thanks, I knew you had the answer.

27. TVraids - January 22, 2007

Backspace works fine in Fedora but not Ubuntu. Thanks for the fix.

28. ubuntuuser - January 30, 2007

thanks!

29. Dom - February 13, 2007

I can’t believe the fix is sooo easy and this thing has been driving me nuts for such a long time…

Thank you soooo much!!

30. theSshow - February 14, 2007

Thank you so much! That was very very helpful!

31. Martin - February 14, 2007

Thank you so much..! This has also bothered me forever.

32. Ken - March 3, 2007

Thanks mate ;)

33. Ed - March 10, 2007

BIG thumbs up, thanks this was really bugging me,
consider yourself a hero

34. Shawn - March 21, 2007

Here comes Johnny come lately…but bloody thanks. That was annoying!

35. Dirk - March 22, 2007

Wow! Thanks a lot!

36. jeffrobodean - March 31, 2007

gracias!

37. david - April 3, 2007

thanks a lot! sooo helpful.

38. Don - April 7, 2007

Thanks a lot, it was upsetting me.

39. Tomo - April 8, 2007

Thank you for the info ! It helps me a lot.

40. Mars_357 - April 10, 2007

HURRAY!!! You are my hero

41. Shervin - April 17, 2007

Thanks

42. tex1n - April 20, 2007

Thank you so much.

As a recent windows convert, I found this extremely frustrating, as I didn’t even know the key combo.

43. SickMan - April 21, 2007

I dont know you man but i love you.. thanks

44. Munki - April 24, 2007

Spot on, this had been bugging me for ages

45. Bob - April 25, 2007

Ha! Nice. This was driving me nuts. Almost made me regret upgrading to Edgy, where this started. Thanks for the tip!

46. carthik - April 25, 2007

Wow, I wouldn’t have guessed so many folks were as bugged by this as I was :)

47. emil - May 6, 2007

thanks, I was looking for that :)

48. pedro - May 8, 2007

thank you, thank you, thank you, i was going insane! :)

49. thanks - May 9, 2007

oh man, this is a lifesaver! ty

50. n/a - May 12, 2007

YeS!! This really was a small thing, but I rather liked hitting the Backspace button and had grown used to it as a way to zip around web pages. Now I will be hitting the backspace button to go back to gmail from whence I came!

Thanks!

51. Manoj Nair - May 13, 2007

Thanks for the tip. It was beginning to get on my nerves :)

52. domin8 - May 23, 2007

thanks man ! you’ve helped me a lot ! it was very annoying ! they’re trying to repair old bugs and they’re making new ones

53. Vishal W. - May 27, 2007

Thanks a ton. I could use FF on Windows XP without this problem but it didn’t work on Ubuntu untill now. Thanks once again.

54. Roopesh Sheth - May 27, 2007

Small problem, easy fix, huge impact! Thanks!!

55. Stephan Soller - May 28, 2007

Thanks for the fix! Makes life much easier again. :)

56. jamiekemp.co.uk » How to fix the firefox backspace annoyance - May 28, 2007

[...] to this post here there is a very easy way to stop firefox 2.0 paging up when you hit the backspace key. Returning it [...]

57. Zenith Jameria - June 1, 2007

Awesome! Thanks! Simple solution to simple problem!

58. surfie - June 6, 2007

Great – such solutions are sometimes hard to find, but then sooo simple ;-)

59. svt - June 11, 2007

Thanks, great fix!

60. Fik - July 2, 2007

Thanx. ;o)

61. Jo - July 22, 2007

Thank you, you just solved one of 5 complaints my girlfriend had before switching to ubuntu fully.

62. Julien - July 28, 2007

thanks i was going nuts !!

63. Michael - August 4, 2007

Oh, thank gods! Finally a solution! Cheers!!!

64. KGB - August 10, 2007

Thanks Dude!

65. Joel - August 13, 2007

You’ve saved quite a few people from headaches by posting this…including myself – you rock! =)

66. Jayhova - August 24, 2007

Thanks a lot, you made my day! on PClinuxOS it did not work – until now :D

67. Phil Newton - September 1, 2007

Only just found this, but the backspace issue was one of my top annoyances, especially as I use both Windows to Linux. Thanks!

68. dx - September 5, 2007

thanks a lot !

69. bleurgh - September 11, 2007

haha, so many people annoyed and such an easy fix. thanks man!

70. James - September 15, 2007

Thank you so much. I switched to ubuntu a few months ago and that has been bugging me ever since.

71. Chad - September 22, 2007

Carthik ftw. Thanks.

72. Sp8 - September 25, 2007

Thanks dude.

73. Zach - October 3, 2007

thanks soooooo much!!! it was driving me crazy lol.

74. regmee - October 8, 2007

thanks a lotts !!! …
now ubuntu treats my fingers better !!!

75. Blog Gallery - New Server and Site Location | Ultimate wordpress resources for your blog. - October 11, 2007

[...] the behavior of something as simple as the Backspace key in Firefox can really spoil your [...]

76. Wordpress Gallery - Some thoughts on Ubuntu | Ultimate wordpress resources for your blog. - October 11, 2007

[...] the behavior of something as simple as the Backspace key in Firefox can really spoil your [...]

77. jps - October 13, 2007

Everyone thanks you. It’s funny that all you need to do is go to the config and look for ‘backspace’ – but I never did, because I didn’t suspect it could be that easy. After all, firefox doesn’t let you configure keybindings by default.

78. Maksym Taran - October 17, 2007

Thank you so much! Now if I could only figure out how to remap all the shortcut keys to their windows values… ;)

79. Blog Gallery - Google Apps for Domains Part III | Ultimate wordpress resources for your blog. - October 22, 2007

[...] the behavior of something as simple as the Backspace key in Firefox can really spoil your [...]

80. nokitel.co.uk - BITCHFEST » Blog Archive » Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon - October 23, 2007

[...] Firefox Backspace to Previous Page Fix [...]

81. Mike - October 24, 2007

I know everybody have been thankin’ you, but I also will. This is very useful!

Thnx again!

82. anonymous - November 13, 2007

thanks – this applies to mandriva as well. i’m sure no one will read comment #83 but thought i’d add that just in case anyone is desperate enough.

83. David J. - November 20, 2007

Ugh, thank you kind sir. This has been driving me absolutely hog-wild for months. I had finally given in just recently after switching over to a laptop to do a google query…

On my desktop, losing the backspace functionality wasn’t all that bad because I had a proper mouse. Now that I’m primarily using a laptop, it was absolutely killing my browsing speed!

Truly appreciated. And wow, what an insane amount of comments.
Kudos :)

84. Jeremy Vaught - November 28, 2007

All right! Thanks a bunch, that’s been bugging me. The Alt+Lft Arrow is also a good tip from a commenter, I wasn’t aware of it.

Thanks Carthil

85. Elez J. Shenhar - November 29, 2007

I submitted a patch to mozilla to fix this bug. Please oh please go vote for it so they actually get it in firefox 3.0!
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400518

86. hash - December 5, 2007

i love you thank you for resolving that!

87. Elez J. Shenhar - December 12, 2007

No no. It’s not RESOLVED until someone actually merges it into the code.
In order for that to happen, you need to vote for it.
Go vote:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400518

88. ktyong123 - January 10, 2008

I hate this function, always accidentally bring me back to previous page when i am filling in some form. I hope it can be disable by default!!

89. foobar - January 27, 2008

Thanks! Finally a solution for this annoying feature!

90. Bob/Paul - January 28, 2008

How is that a platform convention? Nautilus (default Gnome File browser) uses backpace to backup. Firefox on linux is a GTK app and has taken on the GTK interface standards (such as Edit: Preferences).

Does this mean Nautilus is breaking convention, too? That would be quite surprising.

91. aray - February 13, 2008

Simple fix but big gain !!!!
Thank you

92. Keith Devlin - February 28, 2008

Awesome! I don’t know why I spent a month being completely frustrated with the loss of my backspace functionality. Thanks!

93. LukeA - March 9, 2008

I’m going to be hitting backspace all evening now… JUST CAUSE I CAN!!!!!!

94. sjpatrick - March 17, 2008

You are a god. This fix is a sanity-saver.

95. Abe - March 18, 2008

You all need to complain to the people who brought this upon us in the first place, or it will never get changed. They seem to think that this is a desirable feature. Tell them otherwise. Their emails can be found in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=358764

96. Dan - March 19, 2008

Thank you!!! This was really bothering me, and your solution was quite simple.

97. stefan - April 7, 2008

Thank you very very much :)

98. Arun Kalyanasundaram - April 15, 2008

Thanks.. it really helped, i didnt even have to restart firefox to see the change.

99. David Miller - April 17, 2008

Nice one, that’s really useful.

Although I’ve just discovered that you can go back & forwards in firefox with alt left/right – but only through the comments here.

Thanks

100. David Trebacz - April 25, 2008

Thanks it was bugging me -I hated having to two finger ALT-left arrow. Backspace works for me much better…

101. Don Coyote - June 3, 2008

browser.backspace_action = 1

That’s what I want. I was typing a letter in Yahoo when I lost focus on the text area. I then hit the back button (to erase a line), but was sent to the previous page [FF 2.0.0.1].

I lost all my previous work I typed out when that happened.

So, “browser.backspace_action=1″ will keep the backspace from backing up a page.

Thank you for this information!

102. Thomas - June 18, 2008

Thank you so much!
Firefox 3 started doing this to me, and the fix works fine and dandy!

103. Anjanesh - June 22, 2008

Wow ! Using FireFox 3.0 on Ubuntu 8.04 and setting it to 0 worked !
Thanks a lot !

104. bob smith - July 2, 2008

another thank you from an ubuntu 8.04 user with firefox 3.0.. that was driving me insane. Thanks.

105. Bob - July 4, 2008

Excellent! Didn’t even know this configuration area existed. Now I am going to go about “voiding my warranty”!

106. Lorenzo - July 6, 2008

You saved the day, the new “feature” was driving me mad!

107. New PC + Ubuntu | Entrepreneurial Geekiness - July 9, 2008

[...] that in Firefox 3 my backspace key doesn’t take me back a page.  Thankfully this fix (backspace key for ubuntu firefox) solves the problem in just a few [...]

108. an-ubuntu-user - July 14, 2008

Thanks :-) thanks also for the ALT-right/left arrow key combination tip to navigate back and forth.

109. Maria - July 18, 2008

This works in Firefox 3.0 as well, thanks for the fix!

110. colin - July 21, 2008

thanks for the fix!

this should be the default behaviour in Hardy FF3.0, anyone know why it isn’t???

111. lb - July 21, 2008

I’ve been bugged by this after changing from Windose XP to ubuntu – thanks for fixing that, this flaw was still present in FF 3.01

112. Chris - August 2, 2008

I was anoyed for a long time by this issue.

Now i’m happy thanks a lot

113. Richcolour - September 4, 2008

I’ve just found this page after screaming at Firefox. I just lost a page of text I wrote on my blog because I hit the backspace button. If your cursor isn’t focussed in the text window Firefox goes back a page and you lose your work. ARRRGGGGHH!!!!

Right, now to switch the stupid feature off. I’ve never used it, instead I use mouse guestures – far quicker and easier.

114. etM - October 7, 2008

Finally! Thanks a lot, bud!

115. jose - October 18, 2008

Nice. Thanks a ton. Makes my porn surfing much more efficient.

116. Tom - October 23, 2008

Lots of, lost of thanks!
This was bugging me to the utmost (on RedHat by the way, not Ubuntu) and I never would have thought of this.

Keep up the good work!

117. Lars Henriksen - October 25, 2008

You’ve just fixed the most annoying thing for me on Ubuntu Firefox – thank you!

118. Cutty - October 30, 2008

I actually agree with poster 12….I happen to find the backspace as a back button incredibly frustrating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit backspace in an attempt to erase a bit of text in an email, only to be pulled back one page and lose the entire document. This extreme frustration may be due to the fact that I use a macbook, and there is no separate “backspace” and “delete” key…there is only delete, which firefox apparently interprets as backspace. I wish there was a config menu within firefox to bind/unbind keys as I see fit. Backspace as back must go!!!

119. anon - November 5, 2008

awesome, thanks!

to cutty: If you accidentally hit “back” when you didn’t want to, hit forward. Your form data should still be right where you left it.

120. Alfredo - November 12, 2008

You solved me days of frustration.

Many thanks!

121. anthony - November 20, 2008

thank you, i cant understand why it is not a default, especially when ubuntu want xp users to migrate

122. Eric - December 7, 2008

Agreed with Cutty here. Ideally form data should be saved between back and forward, but in reality, this never seems to work. Possibly due to bad page design, or auto-clearing fields on page-load. Regardless, the backspace-as-back-button causes a lot of problems. Alt-left/right already work as back/forward shortcuts, so why add extra shortcuts that cause accidental loss of form data? I don’t even use the back button anymore with tabs, so the backspace thing really irks me.

123. Yossi - December 17, 2008

Hurrah for this post! Ubuntu sucks less now!

124. آمنة - December 18, 2008

you are the best, thank you

125. ubuntu quick tip #2 « آمنة - December 18, 2008

[...] Source [...]

126. Setting up Ubuntu on my Dell Studio 17 | gaarai.com - January 2, 2009

[...] then noticed that the backspace key didn’t take me to the previous page. Fortunately I found Fix Firefox Backspace to Take You to the Previous Page, which fixed the problem [...]

127. mayur - January 3, 2009

thanks!

128. umut uygar - January 11, 2009

you’re the man

129. A D-L - January 14, 2009

Ah you have to love the internet for getting the answers you need just by typing “backspace ubuntu”

Thank you

130. Silvio - January 20, 2009

Thanks man :-)

131. Shane - January 27, 2009

thanks dude, this was really bugging me

132. ace - February 8, 2009

WUU thanks

133. daniel - February 14, 2009

well, it’s been over 2 years since your post, and nothing propagated to my firefox 3.0.6… thanks for the post

134. Dave - March 4, 2009

A simple fix to an irritating problem – thanks for making the solution so clear (and easy to find!)

135. Mark - March 7, 2009

Still works on 8.10 and is the first Google result for backspace firefox ubuntu. Nice going! Cheers.

136. raziv - April 2, 2009

Thanks!!!!!!!!!
This one was especially annoying when I switched to a laptop, and gestures are not so easy to use with the touch-pad!

137. John - April 12, 2009

This is still a valid solution. thanks!

138. KJ - April 16, 2009

Was wondering how to fix this, still unsolved on 8.10 with FF3. Thanks!

139. rymo - April 30, 2009

what a joke! here we are now at Ubuntu 9.04 and still backspace doesn’t work like it should without this tweak . thank you so much for your help!

140. Rahul - May 19, 2009

Thanks, backspace is back in action :)

141. Yoanna - May 29, 2009

Thank you, thank you! That was soooooo annoying! especialy since my ubuntu machine is my laptop.

Cheers!

142. hemmawisa - June 2, 2009

hi,
thanks very much. i was looking for that!

143. philip - June 9, 2009

thanks, its been bugging me for like two weeks.

144. Jasper - June 23, 2009

Awesome! This bugged me a lot about Firefox 3 running on Ubuntu. Now I can go back to the previous page using backspace again! Thanks a lot!

145. carl - June 30, 2009

I can’t tell you how many hours of work i’ve lost when trying to edit a field and when i hit the backspace key, it went back to the previous screen, wiping out all my work. Going forward brings me back to the page I was working on, but about 75% of the time with all my work erased. I’ve also had it happen when running a java application, again wiping out all my work.

I set that option to “1″, and hopefully that will prevent the backspace key from going back a screen.

146. treefon - July 4, 2009

I agree with carl, [alt Left] and [alt Right] is much safer

147. Roger - July 19, 2009

I cannot even thank you enough for this post. It was killing my experience of firefox in Ubuntu

148. Chris - July 19, 2009

Thank you!

149. getekha - July 25, 2009

<3

150. Sander - July 29, 2009

Thanks!!

I was annoyed already!

151. Lance - August 2, 2009

You can correct me if I’m wrong but, I read in a article before this one that the reason for the backspace key being disabled was not due to a bug but due to the fact that it both interfered with other app’s and caused frustration when people hit the key by mistake and ended up messing something up.

152. Car Subs - August 28, 2009

Thank you, perfect…

I’m a chrome user, but i just updated my ubuntu on the same machine from 8.10 to 9.04 and that backspace was bugging me in firefox (really wish they had chrome here, it IS THE FASTEST browser hands down)…

This was bugging me :) and it fixed it … thanks

153. bandit - September 2, 2009

you are awesome!
easy porn browsing is back once again!

154. manbearpig - September 21, 2009

Thank you so much for this, I was getting sick of pressing backspace to no avail (running FF3 on Ubuntu 9.04, still doesn’t work)

155. nathan - September 22, 2009

Thank you!

156. Kam - October 23, 2009

Final-god damn mother fucking cock smoking cunt shitting eyesocket raping bitch fucking asshole facing buttcockmonkeyfucking LY!

Whose the FUCKING RETARD that thought it would be “CONVENIENT” to have a key USED TO CORRECT ERRORS IN TEXT BOXES be used to negate ALL WORK IN THE TEXT BOX BY RESETTING THE FORM?

We need to fucking MURDER the fucking moron.

157. genesis - October 28, 2009

Awesomeo!!

158. Brian Schimmel - November 1, 2009

I can see the pros and cons of using backspace to navigate back, but I just don’t get why they decided to “fix” it on Ubuntu, but kept it working on Windows and OS X. This is still an issue in Firefox 3.0.

159. StarkRG - November 23, 2009

Perhaps it’s just me, but backspace should be for deleting characters. If it also goes to the previous page then you have a problem when the text box you’re typing in loses focus (can happen if a dialog box pops up or you accidentally click outside it). You can lose everything you’ve typed instead of just the previous character.

I use alt-left and alt-right to navigate.

160. Keith - December 8, 2009

Totally agree with StarkRG, and found this page after losing three paragraphs because facebook chat received a message while I was typing. Way more frustrating than it’s worth. However, I think the best thing is to have it configurable, so I’m glad to have found this page.

161. chmieleslav - December 11, 2009

as the rest of people above – THANX A LOT!! :D

162. Trouble with Firefox Backspace in Ubuntu « Me n My Programming - December 20, 2009

[...] go to the previous page. Fortunately someone has solve this problem we can rejoice with it Click here for solution [...]

163. Sparkleybutt - December 24, 2009

This made me happy in my pants region – thanks!

164. Anthony - January 24, 2010

Thanks heaps! But unlike most people I wanted to disable this feature :P I hate it when you accidentally hit it while watching a youtube video or something or you press it and the focus wasn’t on the text box so it takes you back and you lose all of what you’ve written so far.

165. Dave Child - January 29, 2010

Thanks! That was really starting to bug me.

166. Bodhisatta Barman Roy - February 3, 2010

Thanks for the info !!!

I have been facing the problem for the last 6 months…..but I didn’t get the spark to google it and find out the solution…..I’ve mailed it to my friends’ group……

167. theo - March 2, 2010

thank you, will try it on Ubuntu later

168. fpG - March 8, 2010

Thanks for info. I love U :)

169. watakach - March 9, 2010

Thank you so much, google give me this link for “firefox backspace linux” and thank you for helping me !!!!

-Watakach

170. lyrabas - March 15, 2010

Thanks Man. This worked perfectly! You da man. :)

171. no one - March 16, 2010

pretty ridiculous that four years later they didnt fix this bug yet… but this works, so thanks.

172. thankful - April 9, 2010

YES! Thank you!!!!! I got back the backspace functionality on firefox thanks to your post :)

173. Benney - April 15, 2010

Such a simple fix Thank You.
I just loaded Ubuntu this past week and found this annoying.

I can’t believe this is such an old issue.

174. john - April 17, 2010

Thank you, it helped me,
I found you on google

175. Ubigcow - April 29, 2010

Thank you, this helped me turn off backspace. It was so annoying when I had just written a large chunk of text and went to another page to check how to spell something. I would come back and press backspace to delete the word I had misspelled and instead go back a page, loosing all I had written. I wish I had gotten around to fixing this earlier. It was so easy.

176. marcus - May 4, 2010

ok… so how do i do this fix in chrome??

177. livestreamfree.net - May 27, 2010

great…like this post…..

178. Scott F. - July 17, 2010

Thank you so much! I browse google images and have become accustomed to hitting backspace twice to return to the images after viewing the results! By the way, I am running Firefox 3.6.6 on Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.4. Its amazing to see this problem this far after the post.

179. Primeintel - July 28, 2010

thnxx a lot :-)

180. Kishore - July 29, 2010

Here’s the solution for it :

1 – In the address bar type: about:config.

2 – Scroll down to the entry called browser.backspace_action.

3 – Double-click on this row and it will pop up a dialog box asking you to enter a value. The current value will be 0, change it to be 2 then click OK.

That’s all there is to it

181. Rens - August 12, 2010

Thank you! So easy!

182. Gaussman - August 25, 2010

August 2010 – and still fixing ;-)
Thx a lot!

183. Dennis Lopeman - August 27, 2010

THANKS! Worked

184. Josh Cummings - August 27, 2010

Sweet relief! Thanks for the tip.

185. עבודה בחול - September 21, 2010

עבודה בחול
IOPAI73948IOPP

Thanks for news.

186. John Ortiz - September 22, 2010

Thanks for this information. Just, I have applied this solution to my mff web browser. g’bye!

187. sikiş izle - September 26, 2010

The feature WAS a bug. Good riddance!

188. antalya ilaçlama - September 27, 2010

Sweet relief! Thanks for the tip.

189. porno sikiş - September 27, 2010

That is amazing… Thanks very much.

190. sex sikiş - September 28, 2010

Wow! Thanks a lot!

191. sikiş - September 30, 2010

yarrak var cop olmus :d

192. procop - October 3, 2010

Thank’s
Useful page ;)

193. mike - October 22, 2010

thanks dude!
a 5 year old post and it still helps so many people.
thumbs up!

194. keith - October 23, 2010

I’ve been so used to this on my Windows box. Switching to Ubuntu is a big learning curve. Thanks for helping me to get this behavior back.

195. A Moreno - November 21, 2010

Thank you so much. I missed that action and I got it back!

196. Gebze - December 18, 2010

Thank you so much.Very good site

197. nimasu - December 31, 2010

Thanks. Helped me.

198. Dawn - December 31, 2010

Thank you for saving my sanity and improving the chances that I don’t go crawling back to my Windows install. The lack of backspace action was driving me crazy.

199. mia - January 18, 2011

tnx alot^^

———————–
ubuntu 10.10

200. Newton - January 28, 2011

Thank you very, very much! So annoying… But now it’s solved! :)

201. M. - March 10, 2011

I love you man!
This was bothering me for so long!

202. Robert - May 19, 2011

Thanks a lot. It is a bit weird that they still didn’t re-enabled it.

203. Luciano - May 25, 2011

thanks!!! (more than 4 years later your post is still useful)… :)

204. Yousef - May 31, 2011

Thanks alot!! This was really bugging me.

205. Faisal - June 10, 2011

Thank you,worked like a charm,

The funny thing here is that the problem is still existed that’s why you can see comments from 2006 still going on until now, lol

206. Firefox backspace issue on Linux « It’s a blog! - June 14, 2011

[...] the record, I found it HERE and it looks to have been an issue from at least [...]

207. Scott Breakall - July 6, 2011

Nice fix, worked like a charm!

In Firefox 5.0, the default value is 2 — changing it to 1 didn’t do anything that I could detect, but changing it to zero instantly restored the “back button” I was looking for!

Mike - July 18, 2011

@207. Scott Breakall
Thanks!

208. Fish - July 12, 2011

Thanks, that’s been annoying me for ages! Now I am fully happy with my migration from Vista to Ubuntu!

209. arkadaş - July 23, 2011

Sayesinde, yaş için beni rahatsız edici! Şimdi Vista Ubuntu benim göçle birlikte tam mutluyum!

210. rulman - August 17, 2011

iyi

211. sgddsgf - September 11, 2011

Fantastic, Thanks

212. moldova vizesi - September 16, 2011

iyi

213. Caffeine Addict - October 7, 2011

Thankyou so much for the simple instructions to get this working… so anoying coming over from windows and that not working!

214. hoang - October 11, 2011

Big thanks :)
Suddenly backspace did not work and this instruction help a lot, the button works again.
Thanks again

215. chris - October 27, 2011

i think this post will be popular for long time, helped me and will help hundrets of people in future

216. Fix Firefox Backspace to Take You to the Previous Page « Ubuntu Blog « After Ubuntu - October 29, 2011

[...] Fix Firefox Backspace to Take You to the Previous Page « Ubuntu Blog. change the value to 0 in about:config Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post.   Leave a Comment [...]

217. New Convert to Ubuntu from Windows XP: Day 11 | JCOPRO.NET - December 29, 2011

[...] in the page you wanted to visit.  This will take you to a menu where you can modify the backspace per these instructions, and change the address bar to highlight everything on it when clicked per this [...]

218. Jeremy Cook - January 2, 2012

Glad to get it fixed! Thanks!

219. Károly Szabó - January 17, 2012

Thanks!

220. Corbin21 - January 18, 2012

I have a MacBook pro and I’m using Firefox 9.0.1. I use the Kerio webmail client for my work email and I’ve noticed just recently that when I’m logged into Kerio webmail my delete key is now acting like the back button instead of performing the delete function when I have an email selected. Now when I select an email that I wish to delete and I hit delete it takes me back to my email log-in page rather then sending the email to the trash. When I try this function in other browsers it performs as it has always and sends the email to the trash. I’ve tried doing some research on the matter but I keep finding posts about ”about:config” and changing the value of “browser.backspace_action” to 2. But this only prohibits the browser from going to the previous page and does not allow the deletion of the selected email. Am I the only person with this type of issue? Any help would be appreciated.

221. Fix Firefox backspace = previous page (Ubuntu) « Kern3l articles - February 5, 2012

[...] Source: http://embraceubuntu.com/2006/12/21/fix-firefox-backspace-to-take-you-to-the-previous-page/ Zakres tematyczny: Bez kategorii Dodaj komentarz Komentarze (0) Trackbacks (0) ( subskrybuj komentarze w tej wiadomości ) [...]

222. Thunder - February 11, 2012

The problem with the backspace key while using Firefox has been annoying me for a while. THANKS for posting the solution.

223. Tommy - February 19, 2012

This started happening after running update manager for Mint

Cheers

224. Micro - March 12, 2012

thanks a lot! Backspace not working in firefox or chromium.

Thank you.

225. Yoni - March 14, 2012

thank you!

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Thank you

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate your efforts and I will be waiting for your further post
thank you once again.

229. Fix Backspace to go Back one Page in Firefox 2 and Above | Paul Jorgensen - December 2, 2012

[...] In Ubuntu, Firefox wasn’t honouring the use of backspace to take me back a page. I found a fix here that surprisingly still [...]

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This is a topic which is close to my heart… Thank you!

Where are your contact details though?

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