If you open the Network Monitor panel (Ctrl+Shift+E), you can check whether there is a difference between a regular Ctrl+R (or clicking Reload) and Ctrl+Shift+R (or Shift-clicking Reload). What you would typically notice is that a regular Ctrl+R reuses files from the disk cache, while a hard reload retrieves every file again regardless of whether it was cached. I have attached an example screenshot.

Are you seeing everything from the web, or everything from cache, or some other unusual pattern in the Network Monitor?

Neither kind of reload should affect whether you can go Back in a tab unless a script in the page redirects in a way that modifies what Firefox continues to be "back" history.

Since Firefox doesn't have a built-in feature to assign Alt + ` to anything, I wonder whether it was an add-on providing that extra feature?

Thanks for the response.

I didn't do the Network Monitor stuff, because of this:

"Neither kind of reload should affect whether you can go Back in a tab."

When I noticed the back history being deleted on a force refresh, it was when I was using an index.html from my USB drive as the home page. Sometimes I would accidentally do a Google search in that page. And then when I clicked Home, it would show that there was a back history. So I would get rid of it by doing a force refresh.

I was hoping that it would be possible to do with actual webpages that I have set as my home page. For example, I now have the Google search page as the home page. I was hoping I could force refresh it using a shortcut key to remove the back history for that page so it looks "fresh" with no active back button.

Do you know of any way that I can accomplish this? I've been holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the home button to open up a new instance and then I close the original tab. But I'd much rather Ctrl + F5 it.

As for your question, I believe the Alt + ` is something I added in the Saka Key addon. I use F1 macros in another program to resize and position my windows. And I use Saka keys for left hand quick combos like Alt + ` for Hard Refresh Tab (bypassing cache), Alt + 1 for Previous Tab, Alt + 2 for Next Tab, Alt + 3 for New Tab, and Alt + 4 for Close Tab. And two macros using a program that let me F2 (original Ctrl + B) for Bookmarks Sidebar and F3 (original Ctrl + J) to open up the Downloads (and History in Library window) popup window.

I can't think of any built-in way to use Reload to open a new tab with your home page and close the tab that was current when you pressed that key combination. Someone could create an add-on to perform those steps, but Firefox won't allow replacing a built-in keyboard shortcut (except in some cases through the method used by Saka Key, which is to use a script in the current page to intercept it before Firefox acts on it).

No, I meant refresh current tab without closing the tab or opening a new tab but also delete back history same time. Oh well. Thanks, as always. Have a great day and month. Until next time!