Chrome - How to disable scroll over tabs

I use a laptop. Not a mac, but with a multitouchpad so I scroll down and right click with 2 fingers still.

I hate the fact that if I move too much my fingers over tabs, the scroll will but activated and it will switch to another tab (pretty randomly since my scroll was unintended). It can sometimes be difficult to find my tab bacK.

Is there a way to disable this behaviour? In general, Chrome seems very minimalistic in terms of behaviour customization ...

Someone had the problem on Firefox, which I actually don't have there: How can I disable mouse wheel scrolling of Firefox tabs? Maybe this extension could help, but I have a negative feeling about it. Somebody uses it? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortcut-manager/mgjjeipcdnnjhgodgjpfkffcejoljijf

I'm using Chrome 30.0.1599.101 in Lubuntu 13.10.

Thanks

Augustin Riedinger

Posted 2014-01-30T11:26:54.587

Reputation: 530

1Has anyone found a solution to the problem yet? I just installed Linux Mint and it's already starting to get annoying – rink.attendant.6 – 2014-09-22T09:57:39.917

3This 'feature' has been in Chrome/Chromium since 2008. For 7 years it has haunted, taunted and annoyed Linux users. It's still going strong. – Mave – 2015-06-04T11:24:32.190

That's only one of a dozen such "features". Zoom on Ctrl+wheel, scroll to some arbitrary position on page load, auto-zoom on mobile, ... – zoechi – 2016-02-18T09:26:38.633

Scrolling over the tabs in Chrome doesn't switch tabs by default. See http://superuser.com/questions/504687/how-can-i-get-google-chrome-to-switch-tabs-using-the-mouse-wheel for reference

– Der Hochstapler – 2014-01-30T12:18:57.033

8@OliverSalzburg it does on the Ubuntu version, this used to drive me crazy with a trackpad but I don't use Linux any more. I never found a solution but this was a long time ago now. – zelanix – 2014-01-30T13:16:00.937

I hope you haven't left Linux for this. It would be sad! But at least if it was an option, it means they asked themselves if it made sense or not. And as every option, some people like it, some don't... I'll keep searching the web – Augustin Riedinger – 2014-01-30T15:40:53.993

Answers

As of today this is built-in functionality within Chrome GTK/Linux only. Here is the key thread discussing the change: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1316

Windows users must use Chrome Toolbox (by Google) or an alternate solution. Unfortunately this extension and its control options aren't available on Chrome Linux's latest versions due to the drop for NPAPI support, as mentioned in the extension FAQ.

As a result, the only option I see is to pull down the source code for Chrome and modify the source, which I've done personally to make tweaks. It's not that hard to do and would be the route I would take. For this particular feature, I would simply undo / rollback the following change and recompile:

https://codereview.chromium.org/155053

If you click the "View" link under the column Side-by-side diffs and change the files to match the red version (old), that should essentially do the trick. Sorry this is technical in nature, but it would certainly solve the problem. Alternative suggestions welcome.

sean2078

Posted 2014-01-30T11:26:54.587

Reputation: 362

It might also help to vote for a feature switch for this: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=407051

– seanf – 2015-12-18T02:09:19.853

Thanks @seanf, personally I marked the issue w/ a star .. result: "Your vote has been recorded" – sean2078 – 2015-12-18T02:24:36.293

The issue is still here. :(

My guess is that this feature is not even usable.

Let's verify this: please downvote this answer if you actually use this feature.

Augustin Riedinger

Posted 2014-01-30T11:26:54.587

Reputation: 530

It's considered a bug for MagicMouse users: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=965753

– Cees Timmerman – 2019-09-26T14:21:19.837