Mozilla Firefox 86 Will Have Backspace Navigation Shortcut Disabled by Default: How to Re-Enable

Mozilla users can re-enable the feature by going into about:config.

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 8 January 2021 14:38 IST

Mozilla Firefox 86 Will Have Backspace Navigation Shortcut Disabled by Default: How to Re-Enable

Firefox users can still navigate to the last visited page by using another shortcut – Alt+ Left arrow

Highlights

Firefox 86 will roll out for all users sometime in the future
Users who install it will not be able to use backspace shortcut
Mozilla claims that the shortcut often resulted in user data loss

Mozilla Firefox 86 will have the backspace navigation shortcut disabled by default. The reason behind disabling the shortcut is to help users avoid data loss. Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge have already disabled this backspace shortcut a while ago. Chrome users must download an extension for this work again, whereas Microsoft has offered a flag for users to re-enable it. Mozilla has also offered its users the option to re-enable the backspace keyboard shortcut if they wish to.

The company, in its Firefox 86.0a1 nightly release notes detailing all the new features coming with Firefox 86, confirms that the backspace navigation shortcut will be disabled by default to prevent user data loss. The backspace key as a navigation shortcut allows users to go back to a previous page and sometimes this causes users to lose data. For instance, they can lose all the details filled in an online form. Firefox 86 will roll out sometime in the future, and all users who will install it won't be able to use the backspace and shift+backspace shortcuts for navigating to the previous page. This change was first spotted by Techdows.

Even though the backspace shortcut will be disabled, Firefox users can still navigate to the last visited page by using another shortcut – Alt+Left arrow (command+Left arrow on Mac).

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Mozilla has also highlighted another way to re-enable the backspace navigation shortcut. Follow these steps mentioned in the release notes:

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Head to about:config
Find browser.backspace_action and change the preference value to 0.

Therefore, even though the backspace shortcuts will be disabled by default in Firefox 86, they can be re-enabled rather easily. For Google Chrome users, the tech giant offers an extension to re-enable the navigation shortcut. Microsoft Edge users will have to enable the “Assigns the Backspace key to go back a page” flag in edge://flags and restart their browser to re-enable the shortcut.

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