4 Ways to Supercharge Double-Click Action in Firefox

Double-clicking (and double tapping) is one of the preferred mouse (or touch pad) actions for me. It’s quick and easy and helps to get things done faster. Sadly, double-clicking is really under-utilized in Firefox.

The only thing you can do by double-clicking in Firefox is highlighting the word right next to the cursor. Besides that (which is a less-known behavior), if you double-click the 2-3 pixel wide bar just beneath tabs, it opens a new empty tab in the foreground.

So is there any way to get more out of double-click action in Firefox? Yes, there are several ways to actually.

1. Close The Current Tab By Double Click

Close Tab by Double Click is a simple lightweight Firefox addon that does just one thing: lets you close a current tab with two clicks of your mouse.

Note: The only thing to add here is that with this addon, if you have only one tab, the double click will close the current Firefox window (which will often make you start Firefox again). This can be changed in your browser about:config settings.

Just type :

browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab

and change the value to false:

Here’s a less-known addon that can do the same thing but it also has an option to close the tab on three clicks (which, I imagine, can be quite handy as well):

2. Show Context Menu On Double Click

DoubleClick ContextMenu is sure to be appreciated by Opera fans who are considering Firefox as their default browser. It prompts Firefox to show an Opera-like context menu when you double click on text:

3. Reload The Current Tab On Double Click

Reload Tab On Double-Click does exactly what you would expect it to do: it reloads the current tab when you double-click on it (and it does “full” / no-cache / hard reload if you hold SHIFT when double-clicking):

SHIFT + double click = reload the page skipping the browser cache.

Note: be sure you remember you have this addon installed. In some cases, it can result in loss of data (with almost completed forms, etc).

4. Open Links In A New Tab By Double-Clicking On Them

DblClicker is a multi-feature Firefox addon that enables double-click action to open links, namely:

• Double-click a link to open it in a new tab.
• Double-click a link in your bookmarks to open it in a new tab.
• Double-click a link in your browser history to open in new tab.

In all cases the new tab will open in the background (which is quite handy).

That being said, if you prefer to open links in new tabs, having this add-on installed (or at least trying it out) is a must for you!

There are quite a few options that you can set in the addon settings:

• Auto-hide history and bookmarks toolbars after clicking a link there;
• Set Double-click tab action:
  • Default: Duplicate Tab
  • Close Tab
  • None: to avoid conflicts when using other tab clicking extensions.
• New tab options: whether it open in the background or foreground:

Are there any other FireFox double click actions you are aware of? Please share them in the comments