Why doesn't ctrl+home take me to the top of the page in Firefox?

November 3, 2011 2:51 PM

Why doesn't ctrl+home take me to the top of the page in Firefox?

Windows Vista 64, Firefox 3.6.23.

This is a problem on almost every web site I visit now. (Today it has not worked on everything except Ravelry; ctrl+home took me to the top of the page and "selected" the Ravelry logo.)

When I'm several scrolls down from the top of the page, I'm used to just hitting ctrl+home or home to get to the top of the page in Word and other MS products. I don't remember if this NEVER worked for me in Firefox or if it's recent, but I do know it's recently driving me insane.

I have tendonitis in both wrists now, so I'm trying to use more keyboard shortcuts and not so much mousing. Scrolling down and then back up a page gets annoying (and painful) really fast. And sometimes I'm many, many "page up's" from the top, and that's annoying too.

So what do I need to change to make ctrl+home or just home take me to the top of the web page I'm on in Firefox?

(I know this is dumb.)

posted by misanthropicsarah to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Have you installed any new addons or programs? The Mozilla support page for Firefox shortcuts says:

Firefox does not provide any method of customizing keyboard shortcuts. In order to be able to do that, you need to update Firefox to its latest version and install the Customizable Shortcuts extension.

posted by filthy light thief at 2:57 PM on November 3, 2011

I've always successfully used just "Home" (without CTRL) to return to the top of webpages in Firefox.
posted by yoink at 3:00 PM on November 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

My standard "something is screwy with the browser itself" test is to go to a text file and try doing whatever it is you want to do (pick a Project Gutenberg file.) Wikipedia is also handy, and there's always this very impressive yet simple table.

If you can use the home key (just the home key) on those pages, but not big or fancy ones, then it's probably some stupid script or a plug-in that gets confused when it sees a big page or something dumb like that. It's time to turn off plug-ins, then turn them back on one at a time till you find your culprit. Start with the ones like NoScript and Interclue and Greasemonkey that have to do more stuff the bigger the page is.

If you can't use the home key even on those really simple pages, I'd still do the plug-in thing, but with a heavy heart and a sense that soon I will be reinstalling Firefox.

(Also: Why are you back in 3.6x? I don't know how all plug-ins act with the older versions, but it strikes me that it could be a source of random problems. And like filthy light thief says, the extension that lets you redefine keyboard shortcuts only works with the current stable version, which I think is 7.whatever.)
posted by SMPA at 5:18 PM on November 3, 2011

'CTRL-Home' works fine for me on FF 7.0.1 (Win7x64). But it never even occurred to me to try that. I just use 'Home' on it's own when I want to get back to the top of webpage.
posted by oddman at 7:32 PM on November 3, 2011

okay, okay, you've shamed me into upgrading to the newest version of firefox (i didn't like the newest design so kept my old version. i am getting old and afraid of change i guess).

more programs are now going to the top of the page when i hit ctrl+home, which is what i wanted. but some of you seem to be saying just home will do it? it doesn't. maybe it's a mac thing?

hitting home itself takes you to the beginning of a line in Word, which is why it never occured to me that it would do anything but that in Firefox. and for me, even with the new FF, home still just takes me to the beginning of a line (if i have clicked somewhere on the page it takes me to the beginning of the line. clicking it in the post writing box here on mefi takes me to the beginning of the line i'm typing).

so, i guess my problem has been mostly resolved by installing the newest version of FF. huzzah. but i would be interested in hearing more about the home without ctrl thing if you have thoughts.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:14 PM on November 3, 2011

maybe it's a mac thing?

I confess I'm not totally sure what you mean by this, but I can assure you clicking 'Home' is most definitely NOT a Mac thing. There's no 'home' button on normal Mac keyboards--I'm here staring at my MacBook Pro and there's no 'home' button (nor is there on most any Mac keyboard I've seen).

As for PCs, yes, most of the time hitting 'home' should take you to the top of a webpage. I've got a Dell at work that I will check this on tomorrow, if no one else chimes in.
posted by librarylis at 9:16 PM on November 3, 2011

Are you using caret browsing? (en/dis-able by pressing F7 for a long time)
posted by trig at 10:20 PM on November 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

My entire company uses Mac keyboards like this. They definitely have "home" and "end" buttons. When I get to work I can check to see what "home" does in FF. :)
posted by iguanapolitico at 4:47 AM on November 4, 2011

Home takes me to the top of the page in FF 3.6.3 on my Mac. (And End takes me to the end of the page.) In my computer usage this is pretty standard, except in Word and Dreamweaver which take me to the start-of-line, which is so annoying. ;) I'm guessing that start-of-line is more useful in editors like that, but not useful at all in browsers for any reason that I can think of, so they made Home go to top of page instead.
posted by iguanapolitico at 7:48 AM on November 4, 2011

There's no 'home' button on normal Mac keyboards--I'm here staring at my MacBook Pro and there's no 'home' button (nor is there on most any Mac keyboard I've seen).

It's not a separate key, but fn + left arrow works as home on all the compact Mac keyboards. (fn + right arrow is end, fn + up arrow is page up, and fn + down arrow is page down.)

Home (fn + left arrow) by itself scrolls the page to the top on Firefox on my Mac.
posted by Utilitaritron at 12:01 PM on November 4, 2011

According to Mozilla's Firefox keyboard shortcuts page, the shortcut for "go to the top of the page" is simply the home key — no control key needed.
posted by Utilitaritron at 1:27 PM on November 4, 2011