Keyboard focus being stolen by Flash [closed]

Question

Unfortunately, it is almost a decade old well known FF bug (and now in Chrome too), which is not present in IE. All the Ctrl+T, Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+W etc. keys just stop working when the focus is on a flash object.

The worse thing is, no one seems to know the fix for it yet (see the thread above). Some IBM people made a hack fix for Linux, but there is none for Windows. It is really really annoying.

[update Mar 2013: In google chrome Version "24.0.1312.52 m" and I assume higher versions, the Ctrl+Tab key does not loose focus to flash]

There seems to be no CTRL or ALT combination that would release the focus. The only ones working are that of operation system's. It does not help you to go to another window, the focus still stays, and no, you can not change tab, close it or do anything else either you normally would with keyboard.

I was using my computer without a mouse for a while and this was the first actual problem I had (in addition to missing drag'n'drop features for some sites and facing unreachable button like icons). So those of you who face the same dilemma and don't wish to close the Firefox altogether, you can still use ALT to focus on toolbar of the application (at least in Windows). However, there is no option for closing the tab but you can select any other site from History (e.g. your home page which comes first with h letter) and then finally close the tab.

So (at least in Windows using FF5) e.g. in English version of Firefox you could type: ALT+S+H and then go back using ALT← (or close the tab with CTRL+W or CTRL+F4).

Similar question: Flash steals browser focus

The (not accepted but looks promising) answer of:

 document.body.focus();

may work for you. That can easily be greasemonkeyed. Probably.

On Mac OSX 10.6 using Firefox 4, if the plugin (flash) has focus and your tabbing does not work by using Cmd+1, or Cmd+T for a new tab, etc..

Use Cmd+L first to give the browser address bar focus, and then do Cmd+1, etc...