Disabling Ctrl+Q in Firefox

I always had the impression that Firefox exited randomly, and it always happened when I pressed Ctrl+W to close a tab, which I do some hundred times a day.

I thought it was a bug…    Indeed it is.

The bug is called Ctrl+Q. (How idiot, uh!)

And worse: you can’t disable it. You can’t configure shortcuts in Firefox… what a shame!

The good solution

I found a half solution: Edit -> Preferences -> Tabs -> Warn me when closing multiple tabs.
(no longer works)

Open about:config and set browser.showQuitWarning to true.

You will have to tolerate a bugging dialog every time you truly want to exit. I have done it for years now and it is OK.

Bonus

Ctrl+W closes your window when there only one tab. If you don’t want that, open about:config and set browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab to false.

Extreme solutions, crappy solutions, and some Firefox rant

There is a full solution, which really is a shame for Firefox: replace Ctrl+Q by something else at the system level. I haven’t tested, I’m not even interested.

I have read on some blogs that setting browser.warnOnQuit to true on the about:config page would make Firefox confirm before exiting. This would be an equivalent to my half solution… Anyway, as of Firefox 3.6.6 on Ubuntu 10.04, it simply does not work at all.

There is an add-on called keyconfig that allows you to configure shortcuts in Firefox. I have not been able to find its license, nor its source code. Some blogs and forums point you to keyconfig binary. Some even claim that it’s not a “virus” (probably meaning all sorts of malware and alike). If you want it, go ahead…

keyconfig is not available on Firefox Add-On’s webpage. A bonus for Firefox shame: there is an add-on on their page which only works if you have keyconfig installed (?!).