If you are coming from Windows background, you might have hard time adapting to how Firefox behaves under Linux. Basically Firefox does not go back to the previous page when the backspace key is pressed.

After making a thorough search on the web, I came to the conclusion that this is indeed an intended behavior and have some philosophical roots. To make long short, the proponents of this behavior state that backspace key is intended to be used when correcting a mistake. And since going back to a page is not result of an error but simply part of surfing the web it should “not” use backspace for this.

Although I can appreciate the logic behind it, I’m against challenging well-established habits that have no practical implications just to be logically sound.

Here’s how to bend Firefox to respect your old habit.

1. Type about:config to the address bar.
2. Start typing “browse” to locate the entry browser.backspace_action
3. Double-click on the “value” column to change it 0 (it is set as 2 by default)
4. Done!