Firefox is adding support for a feature, that users requested since 2004

Mozilla's Firefox web browser has a rich history. From humble beginnings in 2004 to the high of being responsible for the decline of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and a noticeable drop in users in recent years.

Mozilla started to add highly requested features in the past year or two. These include favorites such as tab groups or vertical tabs. Features, that Firefox users requested for years.

Soon, Firefox users may get another feature that some have requested since the very early releases of the browser: customizable keyboard shortcuts. Firefox users had some extensions at their disposal in the past, but most of them stopped working entirely when Mozilla switched the system it uses for extensions or are very limited.

Browsers such as Opera or Vivaldi support custom keyboard shortcuts. While not for everyone, they let users change the defaults to something else. If you are not happy with a particular keyboard shortcut, because it tends to get in the way or is requiring an advanced degree in finger acrobatics, then you could use the feature to change that.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Firefox

The new feature is already integrated into Firefox Nightly, the cutting-edge development version of the browser.

Note: Firefox Nightly is currently at version 147 while stable Firefox's version is 145. It is not yet decided whether the feature will be introduced in Firefox 147, but it can't be that long.

All you have to do is load about:keyboard in the Firefox address bar to get started. Firefox lists the keyboard shortcuts that you may change in a long list. A search is provided at the top, which you may use to find a specific shortcut quickly.

You find lots of keyboard shortcuts on the page, from popular ones like Ctrl-T for opening a new tab page to Ctrl-P for printing. But, there are also the keyboard shortcuts listed that use three keys, such as opening the entire history (Ctrl-Shift-H) or opening the Extensions page (Ctrl-Shift-A).

Simply activate the change button to change any of the keyboard shortcuts. Note that you are not limited and can theoretically map a single character to a shortcut. This can speed up browsing, but may lead to some issues. However, if you have activated a text field and some other elements, the shortcuts won't fire.

There is also the clear-option, which lets you remove any keyboard shortcut from Firefox. It maps "nothing" to a shortcut, which may be ideal if you found a hotkey to be very annoying.

Last but not least, you may use the reset button to restore the default for any of the modified keyboard shortcuts. If you scroll all the way down, you find another button to reset everything to the defaults.

Closing Words

Custom keyboard shortcuts are a useful feature. While most Firefox users may not have any use for such an advanced tool, the feature will certainly have its fans pretty quickly after it becomes available.

Now You: Do you have keyboard shortcuts in mind that you would like to disable or change? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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