CMD+Mouse Wheel to Zoom in Firefox for macOS [Fix Firefox 109.0 Intentional Bug]
Firefox 109.0 for macOS introduced an intentional bug that disables the popular highly useful zoom in/out using cmd+mouse wheel. Mozilla claims that this engineered bug "avoids accidental zooming and matches the behavior of other web browsers on macOS." However, it causes severe trouble for productivity users and the large user community who use a mouse and keyboard.
Could you please let me know how the highly popular and practical zoom in/out using cmd+mouse wheel could be re-enabled in Firefox 109.0?
Also, I would like to ask Mozilla to respect user decisions and let them choose whether they prefer to disable Ctrl or Cmd + trackpad or mouse wheel (scrolls the page instead of zooming) or use it.
Thanks
All Replies (6)
You can check mousewheel.with_meta.action on the about:config page.
Meaning of the Action:
0: Nothing happens 1: Scrolling contents 2: Go back or go forward, in your history 3: Zoom in or out (reflowing zoom) 4: Treat vertical wheel as horizontal scroll 5: Zoom in or out (pinch zoom)
Thank you cor-el.
What is the current default value of this pref on Mac, as in the past Mac was an exception for this pref (On Mac:3 and on Win/Linux:1) ?
OK, I see this is mentioned in the 109 Release notes under Changed.
On macOS, Ctrl or Cmd + trackpad or mouse wheel now scrolls the page instead of zooming. This avoids accidental zooming and matches the behavior of other web browsers on macOS.
See also these bugs:
- 1781960 - stop doing (reflow) zoom when ctrl/cmd plus touchpad scroll on mac [109]
- 1805394 - Remove functions from Command and Option modifier keys in macOS, as in Chrome and Safari
(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)
Modified by cor-el
It is great that users have more options with the modifier keys in Firefox. However, I got confused when I saw Mozilla considered the post of just one user, which is posted about 1 month ago while much more critical bugs in Firefox for macOS that were reported by several users have not been solved even after years! (Example: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1738596 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1769340). On top of that, what is claimed in that post feels more like an advertisement for a macOS app rather than a bug report "This is very convenient for users of the MOS utility, which is installed by almost all mac users." All macOS users? It is a too big claim!
To me, removing a popular feature seems like disabling yourself because other people you know have a disability that could be cured! Considering the Mozilla foundation policy, I don't believe Mozilla is committed to mimicking other organizations' "mistakes". While compatibility is important, I believe Firefox should not lose its uniqueness critical for competing in a browser market that is limited to Google Chrome and other Google Chromes such as Ble Chrome (Edge), Red Chrome (Opera), etc.
Thanks again cor-el for your help as well as for evaluating all aspects of this reported issue.
You're welcome and you can see that macOS was actually an exception in this case.
Those mousewheel prefs are set globally in all.js and can be override in firefox.js for only this browser. The intention is/was to use only all.js for the mousewheel prefs and remove cases where the mousewheel prefs got overridden in firefox.js.
- https://searchfox.org/mozilla-release/source/modules/libpref/init/all.js
- https://searchfox.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js
Prefs can also be moved to the StaticPrefList for faster access.