This is actually quite simple and I have seen many forum posts about this problem. All you have to do is type “about:config” in your browser, and use the search tool to find the following options:
mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action (change it to 0)
mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.sysnumlines (change it to “true”)
Now restart firefox and that annoying behavior should be fixed.
May 22, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Hi Alex,
Thanks for this great tip this crazy browser behavior was driving me nuts
harish
May 26, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Oh thank god.
I don’t know when this was added but it looks like yet another annoying disparity between the WinXP and Linux defaults to have to grapple with. Thankyou very much for providing this information.
May 27, 2007 at 12:43 am
Nevermind… now its scrolling horizontally (diagonally actually, any time the wheel is moved with vigor) )instead of jumping back and forth thru the history. ARGHHHH
Its now my official opinion: FIREFOX ON LINUX SUCKS. On the old linux box I had, it wouldn’t even install due to version problems with installed libraries. I had no problems with mozilla or seamonkey, however…
Its all too telling that the Firefox 1.x download for Windows was half the size of the Linux download. Anyone remember when it used to be Windows that had the bloatware? What happened?
This came installed with Slackware 11, so I don’t know how big its package was…
I will be deleting this program entirely Real Soon Now, and just sticking with Seamonkey, which actually works and isn’t set to something TOTALLY ABSURD by default, like DIAGONAL SCROLLING when one moves the scrollwheel really fast.. who on earth wants that, and why?
September 10, 2007 at 4:01 am
[...] To get the mouse to work well in Linux, I followed these instructions from a Linux gamer. To get the horizontal scroll wheel working in Firefox, I followed these instructions. [...]