I can’t say I’m a fan of this new keyboard shortcut in Firefox

You’re not going to convince me not to use Firefox. I’m allowed to rant about it without people trying to push other browsers on me. I’ve already tried Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Galeon, Dillo, Lynx, and Ka… Kaha… whatever that other browser is.

Sigh.

That stupid new Control-Q keyboard shortcut, though. Control-W (close tab) is a regular part of my browsing experience. I open tabs. I close tabs. But then Firefox recently added in Control-Q (quit Firefox) as a keyboard shortcut. It sounds like a good idea. I’m actually a big fan in general of the Cmd-Q (Mac OS X) and Control-Q (KDE) approach. There should be a relatively easy way to quit an application (Alt-F4 is not a comfortable keyboard combination for me).

But, of course, Control-Q (quit Firefox) is now right next to Control-W (close tab), and I often find myself quitting when I want to just close a tab. Yes, I know I can have Firefox confirm when I want to close, but I don’t want it to confirm… I just don’t want it to close. If someone knows of an about:config trick to turn off Control-Q, let me know. In the meantime, I have Firefox set to open with the same tabs from my last session.

15 comments

  1. Not sure of an easy about:config trick, but I’ve been using the keyconfig extension for awhile now, and you can pretty easily change/disable keyboard shortcuts using it.

  2. You know, you’ve got a point there, and for some reason Gnome’s mappable keyboard shortcuts don’t apply in Firefox. Good luck man, I feel your pain. There’s always that Vim Firefox extension if you’re intense enough to use it, hehe.

  3. I can’t find the keyconfig extension.

    I can find an extension that says it’s functions for the keyconfig extension, but it’s also not available for Firefox 3.

  4. Eeek! That is a terrible idea. In my opinion anything that does a full shutdown of a program needs to be at least three characters long! I can maybe see ctrl+shift+q. Silly mozilla noobs.

  5. -chuckle- I must confess I have never had this problem. Aside from the fact I rarely use Ctrl+w to close a tab, I use the Dvorak keyboard for the vast majority of my computer usage, and ‘w’ and ‘q’ are at the equivalent of ‘,’ and ‘x’, respectively. Good luck in your search!

  6. I never even use a Ctrl+W, didn’t even know it existed, thanks for telling me though:D I tried the Ctrl+Q but it didn’t work, oh well. Anyways, I think it is pretty stupid…

    Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting.:) That’s how I found this post.

  7. It would be nice if, like Pidgin (and other GTK programs) firefox would let you change the shortcut (or add a new one) for any function simply by going to the menu item and pressing the new shortcut.

  8. Call me picky if you want, but I don’t want to be warned every time I close multiple tabs or every time I quit (for example, if I quit by closing the window with my mouse). I just don’t want Control-Q to quit.

  9. Have the same very annoying problem in Gentoo Linux / XFCE. I very often user Ctrl-T / Ctrl-W and often press Ctrl-Q instead of Ctrl-W by mistake. Confirmation is the half solution. BTW, is this a behavior of Firefox or it’s common behavior of all linux applications? My tests says that many but not all programs in linux supports Ctrl-Q. So I intend to diggout internal firefox scripts and configs. Maybe I’ll found it there… If I’ll found, I write there about it.

  10. I found great solution! It’s easy. Just install Firefox Addon called “keyconfig” which allows to edit (disable) default Firefox shortcuts. I just disabled key for “Quit – Ctrl-Q” and problem was solved. Hope this will help others. Solution is here: http://blog.gnu-designs.com/solved-how-to-disable-ctrl-q-in-firefox

    You may just click this link http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi and install this extension. Not a virus. :)

    Then restart Firefox and you’ll find in Tools menu new item “Keyconfig…”.

  11. hm yeah keyconfig would be nice but it doesn’t work on new ff versions, and it is annoying having dozens of addons to workaround freaking bugs mozilla don’t fix.

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