Mozilla Firefox 134 Is Out with Support for Touchpad Hold Gestures on Linux

posted by ] on Jan 06, 2025,
updated Jan 08, 2025

The biggest change in Mozilla Firefox 134 for Linux users is support for touchpad hold gestures, allowing users to interrupt kinetic (momentum) scrolling by placing two fingers on the touchpad. This feature was initially planned for Firefox 133. Users can disable or enable this feature in about:config by setting apz.gtk.touchpad_hold.enabled to true or false.

Starting with this release, Firefox now follows the model HTML specification for transient user activation more closely. Mozilla says that “this change makes pop-up blocking less strict in cases where previous versions of Firefox were overly aggressive, reducing erroneous blocking prompts.”

Read on

Linuxiac:

• Firefox 134 Now Available for Download, Here’s What’s New

  A month and a half after the previous 133 release, Mozilla released a new version of its widely used open-source browser, Firefox v134, now available for download.

  Linux users will be excited to learn about the newly supported touchpad hold gestures, making scrolling more intuitive and easier to control. In fact, momentum (kinetic) scrolling can now be interrupted simply by placing two fingers on the touchpad.

  Meanwhile, Windows users gain the advantage of HEVC hardware support, which should translate into more efficient video playback for certain file formats.

UbuntuHandbook:

• Firefox 134.0 is out! Touchpad Hold Gestures & HEVC Video Acceleration | UbuntuHandbook

  A new monthly release of Mozilla Firefox web browser, version 134.0, is out today! Though, it’s not yet officially announced at the moment of writing.

  According to the Mozilla Github releases page, the new Firefox release added support for touchpad hold gestures for Linux.

  Meaning kinetic scrolling (aka momentum scrolling or inertia scrolling), the continuous scrolling after lifted fingers from touchpad, can be interrupted by placing two fingers on the touchpad.

OMG Ubuntu:

• Firefox 134 Brings Ecosia Search, Linux Touch Gestures + More - OMG! Ubuntu

  On Linux, Firefox 134 supports touchpad hold gestures. This allows kinetic scrolling to be stopped simply by placing two fingers on the touchpad. If you ever scroll down a lengthy article with enough momentum you’ll appreciate there’s now a way to interrupt it before it reaches the bottom!

  A bug requesting support for touchpad hold gestures on Linux was opened in 2019. Delivering the feature wasn’t trivial, requiring other parts of the desktop stack, like libinput, wayland, and GTK, to support it – now it’s here!

Linux Magazine:

• Firefox 134 Offers Improvements for Linux Version » Linux Magazine

  As reported first by 9to5Linux, the official build of Mozilla Firefox 134 is now available to download from the Firefox FTP site. Firefox 134 includes some important updates, the most user-facing of which is support for touchpad hold gestures.

  If you've never used hold gestures, they essentially allow you to interrupt kinetic scrolling by placing two fingers on the touchpad. The best way to describe kinetic scrolling is the movement after your finger has lifted from the touchpad (or screen). The speed of your finger movement defines the duration, speed, and deceleration of the additional movement (after you've lifted your finger). With Firefox 134, you can now stop kinetic movement by simply placing two fingers on the touchpad. This can help prevent scrolling beyond where you want to go on any given page.

LWN:

• Firefox 134.0 released

  Version 134.0 of the Firefox browser has been released. Changes include support for touchpad hold gestures on Linux, a refreshed layout for the New Tab page for users in the US and Canada, and improved support for debugging web extensions.