Firefox

You can use some firefox options to both disable the default action which is to paste on clicking the middle-mouse button and also to turn on auto-scrolling.

First - in the Firefox - Preferences - Advance settings ensure you have the following options checked:

• Use Autoscrolling
• Use Smooth scrolling

Then in the Awesome bar type about:config

Search for *autoscroll and double click *general.AutoScroll to change from "false" to "true"

Now search for middlemouse

• middlemouse.contentLoadURL = false
• middlemouse.openNewWindow = false
• middlemouse.paste = false

Then restart firefox

When you middle click you should now see this symbol to scroll:

Here's the best solution I've found to keep middle click functional without it pasting things.

First install sxhkd and xsel.

Then configure ./.config/.sxhkd/sxhkdrc like so

~button2
    echo -n | xsel -n -i
~control + c
    echo -n | xsel -n -i
~control + shift + c
    echo -n | xsel -n -i
~control + x
    echo -n | xsel -n -i

And that's basically it.

Now start sxhkd (or configure it to launch on startup). Now, middle mouse will no longer paste anything but will otherwise function like normal. (As long as you use only ctrl+c and ctrl+x to copy things that is, if you copy things with the mouse it can paste once before it returns to normal.)