Firefox doesn't scroll right after one of the recent updates

Factual Questions
1

In the last few months, Firefox’s behavior has changed in a way that I find counter-productive.

Normally, I can click a random spot in the text on a webpage, then scroll up or down using the arrow keys.

Lately, if I do this, I see a cursor on the webpage, and then arrows just move the cursor around. I can even select text using crtl-arrow or shift-arrow. I’ve tested with IE, Chrome, and Opera; all of which still exhibit appropriate behavior.

I’ve disabled all add-ons with no change.

It’s further frustrating if I click a link, go back to the original page, and then page down a few times. Then an arrow press will take me all the back up to the previous “cursor position” on the page.

Anybody seen anything this, or have any ideas?

Thanks

2

I’ve had this happen after Firefox updates in the past. I searched “Firefox doesn’t scroll” and found others having the same problem, along with a fix that worked.

ETA: try this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1175027

3

When I briefly switched from Chrome to MS Edge, I had a similar problem. Sometimes, scrolling up or down would zip sideways to another window. I couldn’t get it to reliably scroll until I moved the cursor to the scroll bar at the right. For all I know, the window-flipping could be “a feature, not a bug.” I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

4

It sounds like you enabled an accessibility feature. If I remember correctly, you toggle it on or off by pressing F7.

It’s also apparently in the Options, under General, under the option “Always use the cursor keys to navigate within webpages.”

5

Thanks BigT, that was it, “Caret Browsing”.