Tired of websites trapping your shortcut keys for their own ends? Me too. Usually, the problem is that they take over the Firefox slash-to-search shortcut. But what can we do about it?
First, we could tolerate it and just use ctrl+f instead. On some slash-abusing sites, like Bitbucket, this isn’t a terrible option: they rarely include long pages that require quick jumps. In api documentation, however, it’s nightmarish.
Second, we could try to stamp out the evil by filing bugs and fighting for justice. There is some hope for this: Github, for example, used to abuse the slash key and no longer does. In general, however, it devolves into Whac-A-Mole. Django rightly rejected slash abuse in in 2008, only to have it sneak into the Django docs in 2015. [As if to prove my point, Github reinstated slash abuse not long after I wrote this.]
Finally, we could just fix it. This Greasemonkey script lets you list known abusers and prevent them from seeing slash keystrokes. After some time, however, I realized that my Greasemonkey approach did not go far enough: it only prevents abuse of one keystroke and only on selected sites.
In fact, there are only a handful of sensible reasons for any website to capture a keystroke, ever. Why not just stop them all?
So, I welcome Keyboard Savior Xtreme. Take back all your keystrokes.
Should Be Simple 