This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

What happened to the back/previous history button? (next to the back/forward buttons)

  • 1 reply
  • 16 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

Hi, just upgraded from firefox 3.6 to 4.

The main problem I have with this version which will make me go back to 3.6 if I can't solve it, is that in this version (4) there is no back history to click on next to the navigational back and forward buttons. I'm not talking about the history menu from the menu bar. I'm talking about the pathway I took to get to the page I'm on, which will be different for every tab that I have open. Sometimes if I've just gone through ebay or paypal checkouts or sent/posted questions on forums etc, I will not be able to just repeatedly press 'back' as it may resend twice, or force me to resend data to re-enter that page, even though I didn't want that page, I wanted the page that was 5 steps back prior. You know what I mean? It used to be great to use that on 3.6 to navigate around and jump about back and fore 8 or 9 pages at a time. The history button in the menu bar doesn't help me, it just tells me the last few pages I've been to overall, and not specific to that tab.

Also, how can I customise the navigation bar? I want an icon for the refresh button back like the one in 3.6 (big, prominent, and moveable). Same for the home button, it's now stuck at the far side (I used to customise all these buttons to be as together or as central as I could).

Hi, just upgraded from firefox 3.6 to 4. The main problem I have with this version which will make me go back to 3.6 if I can't solve it, is that in this version (4) there is no back history to click on next to the navigational back and forward buttons. I'm not talking about the history menu from the menu bar. I'm talking about the pathway I took to get to the page I'm on, which will be different for every tab that I have open. Sometimes if I've just gone through ebay or paypal checkouts or sent/posted questions on forums etc, I will not be able to just repeatedly press 'back' as it may resend twice, or force me to resend data to re-enter that page, even though I didn't want that page, I wanted the page that was 5 steps back prior. You know what I mean? It used to be great to use that on 3.6 to navigate around and jump about back and fore 8 or 9 pages at a time. The history button in the menu bar doesn't help me, it just tells me the last few pages I've been to overall, and not specific to that tab. Also, how can I customise the navigation bar? I want an icon for the refresh button back like the one in 3.6 (big, prominent, and moveable). Same for the home button, it's now stuck at the far side (I used to customise all these buttons to be as together or as central as I could).

All Replies (1)

more options

The arrow to open the tab history of the Back and Forward buttons has been removed in Firefox 4.

Use one of these methods to open the tab history list:

  • Right click on the Back or Forward button
  • Hold down the left mouse button on the enabled Back or Forward button until the list opens

You can look at this extension:


To move the Stop and Reload buttons to their position to the left of the location bar you can use these steps:

  • Open the Customize window via "View > Toolbars > Customize" or via "Firefox > Options > Toolbar Layout"
  • Drag the Reload and Stop buttons to their previous position to the left of the location bar.
  • Set the order to "Reload - Stop" to get a combined "Reload/Stop" button.
  • Set the order to "Stop - Reload" or separate them otherwise to get two distinct buttons.