Very Random Browser Copy/Paste Issue

Software & Operating Systems Windows
1

So this one is not any browser specific issue as I think it is just a common function with pretty much any web browser, and probably not OS specific either but since I use both Windows 10 and Windows 11 I placed the question here.

I do a bit of copying lines of text from web pages to copy into a text document for future reference.

What happens sometimes is that the highlighting will grab part of the line say a word or two and then suddenly it is like I’m dragging this out of the web page and it opens up a new TAB and starts doing a Google search.

Now I understand why Google as ALL my web browsers have Google Search setup as the default be it Firefox or Chrome of Maxthon etc.

What I’m wondering is IF I can disable this auto-open search tab function from happening when this mis-hap occurs ?

I’m not seeing any normal setting nor advanced setting for this so maybe one of the hidden settings ?

I’m not even sure what to look for as I’m not sure what this function would be called/named ?

Any thoughts or ideas on this one ?

And Yes I’ve had this occur in multiple web browsers so it seems to be a command function within web browsers but I can’t confirm if it is a Windows specific issue or not.

2

Have never seen this and don’t know how I could make it happen. In Firefox you would have to right-click after selecting some text and either hit “S” or choose “Search for …” from the menu. Is this something you might be doing accidentally? Perhaps you have keys/buttons sticking on you mouse/keyboard?

My first recommendation would be to right-click after selecting text and using “Copy” and “Paste” options rather than dragging the selected text between application windows.

Or it’s possible some software you have installed is being all too helpful.

3

Wondering if that could be the case but it is happening on both my Windows 10 Workstation AND my Windows 11 Gaming Rig.

Both are using different mice but the same Microsoft Natural KB via a KVM switchbox.

And due to it being pretty random it does seem to point to the mice but it’s like the partial highlighting of the text is just that, pretty random.

I would say it works properly like 99 % of the time it’s just those random times it doesn’t and then this happens and of course it’s pretty annoying.

I’ve been living with it for months but have never really looked into the possible cause/causes.