Summary: provide the options to turn on (1) context menus on button release, (2) autoscrolling.
I suggest that the user be given the OPTION to revert to a more Windows-like mouse behaviour. I understand that there are users who are accustomed to the Linux way, but some people have just made the switch and have a lot of other new things to get used to besides some queer things his (or her) mouse does.
1.) The action associated with the click of a mouse should begin not on the press, but on the press-and-release. For example, I press the right button to open a context menu, and while pressing it, I move the mouse a little to the right. What happens? When I release the right mouse button, I've already chosen some item of said menu.
It's rather disconcerting, especially in video players. Try right-clicking in Totem, pressing and releasing the mouse button in quick succession. It pauses the video, because you inadvertently press pause/resume. Install SMplayer, though, and try it there. That program emulates Windows behaviour, and for a good reason. I think there should be the option to make this system-wide.
2.) There is the action of the middle button. In Windows, when I pressed a middle button amidst text, I could quickly scroll the document up or down by moving the mouse away from the place where the click originated, and it kept scrolling until I released the button. In Linux, when I try to do it, at best, nothing happens, and at worst, a piece of text I selected somewhere gets inserted. That IS a nasty surprise, isn't it? I miss the ability to quickly scroll to the bottom of a document, although the quick copy-and-paste is, admittedly, rather handy once you get used to it.
Firefox gives the option to turn on "Autosrolling" (in Preferences > Advanced), as this functionality is apparently called. So it's convenient enough that there is a hack to simulate this functionality in a single program. I think this hack should be made system-wide.
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