How to disable the middle button scrolling in Chrome

Question

When I press middle mouse button, it opens:

It is so difficult to control the scrolling. Is there any way to disable this?

Answer 1

Update 27 Jul 2020: It appears that the following extension is no longer in the Chrome Store. I still have it installed and it was not removed. I'm looking into whether I can find out more info...

For those interested, the entirety of the source for the extension is as follows. This may also work as a Tampermonkey user script.

var target;

window.addEventListener('mousedown', function(mouseEvent) {
  if(mouseEvent.button != 1)
      return;
  target = mouseEvent.target;

  mouseEvent.preventDefault();
  mouseEvent.stopPropagation();
}, true);

There's an extension named (incorrectly) "No Smooth Scrolling" which disables this:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-smooth-scrolling/oikddacoldignalphkgeppnpalkmkgbo

Answer 2

The No Smooth Scroll 2 Chrome Web Store extension (which is similar to the no-longer-available extension No Smooth Scrolling) successfully disables middle-button-automatic-scrolling in Chrome 89 on Windows, but continues to allow other middle-button actions (open link in new tab, close tab, etc.)

The extension's source code is:

document.addEventListener("mousedown", function(mouseEvent) {
    if (mouseEvent.button != 1) {
        return;
    }
    mouseEvent.preventDefault();
    mouseEvent.stopPropagation();
});

Answer 3

Get the latest drivers for your mouse and see if you can reassign the wheel click to a macro through its settings.

It should be reassigned to: Middle-click [very short sleep] ESC

If you can't get drivers with this feature, I suggest you write a very simple script in Autohotkey to do the exact same thing.

It should look something like this:

#IfWinActive ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_1
MBUTTON::
Click Middle
Sleep 10
Sendinput {ESC}
Return

Answer 4

I'm not sure why, but Google is definitely lobbying this rather frustrating auto-scroll - there was an option to disable it few years earlier, but than it was removed, and Google keeps removing extensions which fix this problem.

I've tried to use TamperMonkey but for some reason script just doesn't load, also TamperMonkey seems to be too heavyweight for such a small fix.

So, I've downloaded it from https://www.crx4chrome.com/crx/158473/ - unpacked to folder (it is ZIP archive), checked content (to avoid malware) and enabled dev mode in chrome extensions, then added unpacked folder as new developer extension - and it worked instantly.

Answer 5

Works with Tampermonkey v4.18.1 in Chrome and Brave.

Please reload target web page, after changing script in Tampermonkey extension.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Disable Smooth Scroll
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  Disable mouse middle button completely. As a result it does not activate browser smooth scroll. Open hyperlink in a new tab with middle button click still works.
// @match        *://*/*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';
    document.addEventListener("mousedown", function(mouseEvent) {
        if (mouseEvent.button != 1) {
            return;
        }
        mouseEvent.preventDefault();
        mouseEvent.stopPropagation();
    });
})();

Answer 6

In Logitech Options, the middle button was assigned to "Middle button". I reassigned it to "None" in the long list of possible actions (action center, close desktop, Cortana, sleep... no thank you!) and I no longer get this annoying multidirectional scroll in Chrome.

Answer 7

In your mouse control panel, you need to disable the middle button, if it will allow you to.

The multi-directional cursor vs a standard up/down cursor should also be because your window is too small, and has both vertical and horizontal scroll bars.

If you make your window bigger, the scroll should only be up/down :)