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goodiesgetthe
New member
Status: New idea

Please, please, please give an option to set the width of the scroll bar in Firefox. It's so narrow that about 50% of the time when I try to drag it down, I end up dragging down the whole window. I'm sure it's nice for those who have their smartphone welded to their palm, but some of us still use PCs occasionally, and it's so annoying I usually just use the Page Down key, making the scroll bar pointless. I can't imagine anyone with less than great vision even trying to use Firefox because of this.

71 Comments
hamis22
New member

Scroll bar hiding should be optional,i hate this new hidden scroll bar.

vincentj
Making moves

Windows and MacOS both have options to set this at the operating system level, Firefox should respect this setting:

Windows:
Settings > Ease of Access > Display > Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows

Mac:
System Preferences > General > Show scroll bars

Additionally, it would be great if Firefox prevented sites from overriding the OS scrollbar styles.  Scrollbar styles should be under the user's control, not the website designer's.

hamis22
New member

I have win 7 and it doesn't have that option.

jscher2000
Leader

I know some people prefer the slim bars, but I don't mind the old school Windows wide bars.

There is a hidden setting to disable sites using the new scrollbar-width style property to narrow the bars:

(A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. Please keep in mind that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future.

(B) In the search box in the page, type or paste layout.css.scrollbar-width-thin.disabled and pause while the list is filtered

(C) Double-click the preference to switch the value from false (allowed) to true (disabled)

Of course, sites probably have other tricks for this, but it's a start.

 

goodiesgetthe
New member

Sounds easy enough, and hopefully it will work in some cases. But I tried multiple websites after chaning this config, and the scrollbar's just the same as always. Even on my tiny home0business website, which I know for certain doesn't have any setting to control the scrollbar - I wouldn't know how to do that in CSS if I wanted to...

philpearl
New member

The vertical page scroll bar on the right side of the screen is so narrow that the slider is difficult to accurately get your mouse over to move the page.  The result is that it requires far too much attention to employ this much-used scrolling function, and to date I have not been able to find a way to widen it.

For example, the scroll bar width is about half that on Microsoft's Edge browser, which I am now using as my main browser as a result of this problem with Firefox.

See attached image for a comparison of the two scroll bars.

 

Status changed to: New idea
Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

tfhammar
New member

Hopefully, this will be addressed soon.  Was this caused by a recent update?  I use Firefox (on Windows 11) often but now find it almost impossible to use due to this extremely narrow scroll bar.  The browser used to honor my Windows scroll bar width setting.

defcon1
Strollin' around

An option for a wider (traditional) scrollbar would be most welcome.

I'm on Linux and went into the Settings to make the scrollbar always visible, but I still don't like the new thin design.  I want an old-school quarter-inch thick scrollbar that's always there and easy to see and can hit with my mouse without having to aim so precisely.  This shouldn't be a big ask.  Some people may like the new thing but I sure don't.  At least give me an option in the Settings, even if my way isn't the default setting.  I bet others would appreciate this too. Example screenshot attached.

rogerzilla
New member

I agree.  Also the arrow at the foot of the scroll bar is so small that unless the cursor is accurately placed it is overwritten by a 'Show desktop' sign.