Turning on Caret Browsing in Firefox

Firefox, Caret Browsing

This is cool! Hitting F7 in Firefox will allow you to turn on/off caret browsing. This feature places a moveable cursor in web pages, allowing you to select text with the keyboard. This is better suited for Laptops/Notebooks.

Brajeshwar posted this article on Wed, Feb 22nd, 2006 at 7:06 am
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Joe Martinez February 22nd, 2006 at 3:27 pm 1

Betcha this’ll be the coolest trick I pick up all week. Thanks!
Lorren January 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am 2

So, I’m wondering…how do you turn it off? I turned it on by mistake and can’t get it to go away.

This feature is not very OCD friendly.
Brajeshwar January 20th, 2008 at 12:07 pm 3

Hitting the same F7 should turn if off. It is supposed to be a toggle key.
Lorren January 20th, 2008 at 12:37 pm 4

Actually, for whatever reason that wasn’t working. So, I found this answer:

Navigate to “about:config” in FF’s address bar, do a live search for “caret” and double click to turn it on/off.
Leo March 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 am 5

Hi,

I’m using the extension Keyconfig on firefox 3 to customize hotkeys. I set F7 to visit google reader but it still toggles Caret Browsing on and off, which is really annoying. Is there a way to completely disable this feature?

Thanks!
Regards
Rudresh November 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am 6

Hi me too required to turn off the caret browsing, because typeKeys method in selenium doesn’t work,
magie January 15th, 2010 at 4:56 pm 7

Lorren: ROFL I see exactly what you’re talking about, the OCD thing. I have to click the address bar to stop the blinking.
nimd4 February 3rd, 2010 at 5:01 am 8

In Firefox 3.6 and newer versions you can disable the F7 shortcut that toggles Caret Browsing by setting the about:config accessibility.browsewithcaret_shortcut.enabled to false.

If you need to, open Firefox in Safe Mode: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

P.S.
Disable Caret Browsing screenshot.