StopGScroll Safari Extension

Update (September 18, 2018): With the release of Safari 12 Apple has disabled legacy Safari extensions.  StopGScroll is a legacy Safari extension.  So it won’t work in Safari 12.0 and beyond.  If I have some time I will try to create a Safari App Extension that does the same thing, if it’s possible.  I’ll update this page if I do.

Have you ever tried to use Google Maps or Google Calendar on a Mac with the Apple Magic Mouse?  Then you know it isn’t pretty.  In Maps the slightest movement on the surface of the mouse sends the map zooming in our out.  In Calendar you go scrolling half way into the next decade before you know what happened.  It drove me crazy.  I decided to see if there is anything I could do with a Safari Extension to fix it.  Turns out there is.

The StopGScroll Safari Extension is very simple.  It only applies itself to Google Calendar and Google Maps so you don’t have to worry about it messing with anything else.  It catches the mouse wheel events and prevents them from propagating into the actual page.  No event means no scrolling.  Hope somebody out there finds it as useful as I do.

The current version of the extension is 1.4.2 released on February 10, 2016.  There is no change in functionality between 1.4.1 and 1.4.2.  A new release was necessary because an Apple certificate used to sign the 1.4.1 release was due to expire on February 14.  Without a new release nobody could install it after that date.

Download 1.4.2 here.

24 Responses to “StopGScroll Safari Extension”

  1. Fred says:

    Hello, just tried your extension but doesn’t seem to work with the latest Safari / Yosemite. 🙁

    • Brian says:

      Hi Fred. Thanks for the comment. I’m still running Mavericks on my Mac. I haven’t had time to do the upgrade. I have access to another machine with Yosemite. I’ll give it a try and see what I can do.

    • Brian says:

      There is now a new version 1.2 that fixes the problem. Google changed the format of the URL for maps so the extension wasn’t loading. This wasn’t a Yosemite problem, it failed on Mavericks too.

  2. Fred says:

    Thank you very much for your 1.3 update, it works perfectly! No more scroll-zooming annoying trouble. I’m sure this extension will help a lot of people! 🙂

  3. Don Taylor says:

    Brilliant! Exactly what Mac/Magic Mouse Google Map users need. Simple, elegant, perfect.

  4. Graham Heyes says:

    Works well on maps.google.com, thank you! Is there any chance you could extend it to work with the “wundermap” weather maps on http://www.underground.com ? They are embedded Google maps with an overlay of weather radar etc. Exactly the same problem, you accidentally hit the trackpad with more than one finger and the weather map zooms in or out…

  5. Graham Heyes says:

    That should be ww.wwunderground.com but, of course, Apple knows best and changes my words for me as I type. I need to switch that off!!

    By the way, I have an Apple developer license that I play around with for my own amusement is there any chance of getting access to the source for this extension?

  6. Graham Heyes says:

    Sigh, it did it again! http://www.wunderground.com !!!

    • Brian says:

      I’ll have to take a look at the page source for Weather Underground and see what I can do. Might be possible to do it for all embedded Google Maps.

      • Matthew says:

        Brian,

        It would be fantastic to have it work with weatherunderground, flightradar24 and flghtaware…they all use the embedded google maps…thanks…

  7. yngve says:

    Thanks!
    This was perfect! Keep up the good work 🙂

  8. Patrick Crowley says:

    Hey… is anyone else experiencing this bug?

    I have 1.4.1 installed, but Safari says I need to update the extension. But, of course, since 1.4.1 is the latest version, clicking the update button doesn’t do anything.

    • Brian says:

      The signing certificate issued by Apple for Safari certificates is going to expire on February 14. I have to download the new one, resign the extension, and post the newly signed version. I’ll be doing that soon.

    • Brian says:

      Version 1.4.2 is available now via the normal update mechanism. It is signed with the new Apple certificate.

  9. Sean says:

    Thank you SOOOO much for this. You’ve single handily saved my sanity!

  10. Matt says:

    Brian,

    I installed StopGScroll on Safari 10.1.2, but there’s a security warning stating that it can “read, modify, and transmit content from all webpages.” Could you tell me why Safari is doing that? I assume that’s because the plugin is intercepting content after its been decrypted on the browser side in order to disable the scroll functionality on Google maps?

    I’m a little concerned about security, but respect your decision to withhold sharing the source.

    It’s a useful extension, so thank you for sharing it!

    • admin says:

      Sorry I’m so slow to reply. I didn’t get notified there was a new comment.

      You are correct as to why the warning comes up. That’s a fairly standard warning for Safari plugins. They do have the ability to do all of those things. However, this one just looks for certain content in the page that clues it in to being one of the Google sites that needs mouse management. The code does not send anything anywhere. In fact, the code is available within the plugin bundle on your computer if you install it. So feel free to have a look.

    • admin says:

      Ha! As soon as I replied to your comment, the site emailed me to tell me you had commented. I think I better check my WordPress settings…

  11. zebrum says:

    Battled with google maps randomly scrolling in and out of streetview for a while thanks so much for providing a solution

  12. walkloud says:

    Thank you very much!

  13. Stan Kasprzyk says:

    Any progress with a StopGScroll Safari Extension that works with Safari 12 and beyond?

    • Brian says:

      Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to work on a new version. There is considerable change in how extensions work in Safari so it isn’t a quick fix. The scrolling still drives me nuts so it’s on my to-do list.

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