The wheel is often referred to as one of the most important inventions of humankind. I’m talking about the mouse wheel here, of course. I can still remember those old times when you had to click on a painfully tiny arrow to move along web pages!
Technology has evolved a lot since then and now we enjoy powered-up mouse wheels that enable us to scroll websites, select items in drop-down menus, zoom photos and a lot more… are you really aware of the incredible amount of tasks you can perform with your mouse wheel in Firefox? Just take a look at this list and see for yourself.
1. First of all, the mouse wheel’s most important function: use your mouse wheel to scroll up and down while visiting a web page.
2. Now let’s add some spice to the basics: Press the Alt key while scrolling along a web page and you’ll move along it line by line.
3. Try middle-clicking (that is, clicking with the mouse wheel) anywhere on a web page and you’ll see an arrow icon that enables you to scroll up and down automatically.
4. Need more detail? Press Ctrl and roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out a web page.
5. Forget about the browser’s back and forward buttons. Use the Shift key plus the
mouse wheel instead.
6. A quicker way to get home: middle-click on the Home button and your homepage will automatically open in a new background tab.
7. When your tabs don’t fit in the browser’s interface anymore, hover your mouse over them and use the wheel to scroll left and right.
8. While in the tab bar, middle-click on any tab to close it immediately – without even showing it. Perfect for compromising websites!
9. Middle-click on any link to open it in a background tab while you keep on browsing the current page. It also works with the Bookmarks bar.
10. Talking about this bar, you can middle-click on a Bookmarks link folder and open all of them simultaneously. If the list is too long, Firefox will kindly warn you before.
