See bug 415444, post-resolved comments. I still wonder what the HIG says, since Mac UIs do time-based multi-button mouse emulation. But 500ms is too long for me. Would like this fixed for Fx3. /be

Was it too long in Firefox 2 as well? We haven't changed the timer value since then, so unless some other bug is causing a slowdown it seems strange for you to bring this up now.

It feels longer, more like a second as I noted in bug 415444. Someone get out a stopwatch. And consult the holy HIG, we really should try to match in effect. /be

Gavin: Fx2 had the XP-dropmarker as well. Note 500ms is used in the legacy-gloabl click & hold implementation as well.

On an iMac G5 the back-button drop-down delay is comparable to the delay when clicking an application icon in the Apple Dock to get a contextual menu (not Control-clicking or right-clicking, just a standard click). In fact, it might be a little quicker. It also compares favorably to a similar click in Safari. In comparison, a "pure" drop-down menu (from the system menubar, or a bookmark folder as shown in the bookmark bar) appears immediately. So the difference is in perception: are you expecting the back-button drop-down to act like a menu, or a button with a popup? The way it is drawn, as a single button, it should be a popup like the Dock, so the delay is fine. (This is also the way Safari works). That said, I think previous versions of Firefox used a split control: the left half was a back button, and the right half showed a "down arrow" to indicate a pure menu.

Peter, thanks for reminding me -- I think in past versions I did grab the "down arrow". I miss that. Buttons are activate-on-release, so is the reason for not flying a drop-down menu only that it might confuse users clicking and releasing Back but holding long enough to trigger a drop-down? IOW, I'd rather a shorter timeout if there is no going back to a split control. I may be an unusual bugzilla user, but I go back N > 1 all the time, not only in bugzilla (but especially there). /be

I guess this can be closed as WONTFIX. Feel free to set back to NEW, if I'm wrong. Btw. there is an addon to bring back the history dropdown: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/backforedrop/