You may have switched on caret browsing. You can toggle caret browsing off/on by pressing F7 (Mac: fn + F7).

• Settings -> General -> Browsing
  remove checkmark: [ ] "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages"

Note that this is a Firefox accessibility feature.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/accessibility-features-firefox

Thanks for your reply cor-el. Checked browser settings for "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages" and that box is not "Checked". Sorry but this did not solve my problem, but thanks for the suggestion anyway. As an additional note, I have not encountered this problem when using the edge browser or within any websites. Thanks again.

Update: I discovered that there was a conflict between the Firefox Setting "Open links in tabs instead of new windows" and the Duckduckgo Setting "Open links in tabs instead of new windows". I had these same settings checked in both Firefox and Duckduckgo. After removing the "Check" from the "Open new links in tabs instead of new windows" setting in Duckduckgo, links still open in new tabs and the down button now functions normally without jumping to the top of the search page when returning to the search page after viewing a website and I am able to continue to scroll down the search page using the down button.

But here's the kicker: Strangely the up and down tabs now do not function at all inside Firefox Settings after unchecking said box in Duckduckgo, neither scrolling the Settings Categories, nor the page inside settings itself.

I am going to try the reverse of the above by unchecking said setting in Firefox and checking the Said setting in Duckduckgo and see what effect that has and I will get back to you. Thanks

The setting I have in DDG is New Window : opens results in new windows/tabs. In Settings I have Open links in tabs instead of new windows.

Those settings don't produce either of the results you mention. It may be worth trying troubleshoot mode.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems (also deals with hardware acceleration)

Update: I should have left well enough alone. Okay, so I tried the reverse, by unchecking 'open in new tabs' in Firefox and checking 'open in new tabs' in Duckduckgo with the following behavior: 1. Websites did not open in new tabs but instead opened in new windows. (I want them to open in new tabs). 2. Upon clicking the back button to return to the search page, the down button once again returns me to the top of the search page. 3. Up and down buttons still continue to not function at all within the Firefox Settings.

So I went back to the last settings by checking 'open in new tabs' in Firefox and unchecking 'open in new tabs in Duckduckgo, expecting the same results as before, with the following results: 1. I did not get the same results as before, although the links now again open in new tabs, the down button once again returns me to the top of the search page after returning to the search page. 2. Now the up and down buttons still do not function at all within the Firefox settings page. 3. The results are now different and I haven't touched any other settings and I don't know why.

Observations: 1. There seems to be a conflict between the Firefox 'open in new tabs' setting and the Duckduckgo 'open in new tabs' setting which is causing erratic or unpredictable behavior, either that or a bug in one or the other. 2. Firefox 'open in new tabs' setting seems to override the Duckduckgo setting for 'open in new tabs' as far as opening a link in a new tab, but also seems to cause unpredictable behavior while doing so. 3. I really don't get it.

I am at my wit's end with this for today, but I did update to the latest version of Firefox and I will see what happens or changes, if anything, after a restart of the computer tomorrow and will get back to you. Meanwhile, if anyone out there has any ideas for what could be causing this or how to fix it, please send me any suggestions that you might have, as I would greatly appreciate it and will try your suggestions to see if they can fix this apparent conflict between Firefox and Duckduckgo settings. This wouldn't be happening if I had a usable trac pad but as it is, I have to use the up and down buttons for scrolling. What I wouldn't give to have a macbook trac pad on this HP laptop! Thanks Again

Hey Terry Thanks for your suggestion, it was greatly appreciated. I followed your suggestion and opened Firefox in troubleshooting mode, however the problem remained the same in troubleshooting mode as it was before: After returning to the search page in Duckduckgo, upon hitting the down button I am taken back to the top of the search page and then have to scroll back down the page to find the place where I was before. I can tell you that this problem persists whether I am opening links in new tabs or not. I can also tell you that I discovered that the change in the 'open links in new tabs' setting in Duckduckgo does not take effect until I open a new browsing window, even though I click "Save and Exit" after changing the 'open links in new tabs' setting. Upon discovering this I found that the 'open links in new tabs' setting in Duckduckgo has to be set to On to open links in new tabs, despite the setting in Firefox, however if I uncheck the 'open links in new tabs' setting in Firefox, the links also will not open in new tabs, so the setting has to be "on" in both Firefox and Duckduckgo. Also cor-el, the "Always use cursor keys to navigate within pages" setting in Firefox does not change this behavior whether the box for this setting is checked or unchecked, the problem remains the same. One more thing that I can tell you is that the behavior is somewhat erratic. What I mean is that a couple of times I was able to continue to scroll down the search page using the down button when returning to the search page and then then the down button started taking me to the top of the search page again. Likewise, a couple of times I was able to use the down button to scroll down the page within Firefox settings and other times the down button scrolled between settings categories only, and still other times the down button does not scroll anything in settings at all. This erratic behavior happened without any settings having been changed, but now the problem seems to have settled back in to the original state as outlined in my original post... unless it changes again. Thanks again cor-el and Terry and if you or anyone else have any more suggestions I would love to hear them and will certainly try them. Windows 10 Fully Updated Duckduckgo Fully Updated Firefox Fully Updated to 109.0.1 Thanks

On the about:preferences page I need to use the Tab key to set focus either to the left navigation panel or to the right panel to be able to use Up/Down as by default its Find bar gets focus.

For pages with results like with search engines, best is usually to open the results in a new tab and close this tab to return to the results page and not use Back to return as this relies upon the cache what can fail in case of scroll anchoring issues. Most search engines will have an option in its settings to open in a new window, but otherwise you can middle-click or hold the Ctrl key and left-click to force this. Those settings should never effect the scroll behavior with other websites.