There’s a lot of misinformation going around claiming #GNOME is removing middle-click paste entirely — that’s not accurate.

GNOME (and #Firefox) developers are proposing changes to disable middle-click paste by default in future releases because it’s considered an old #X11-specific behavior that can be accidentally triggered.

Crucially:
— This proposal is about changing the default setting, not removing the functionality itself.
— The ability to paste with the middle mouse button isn’t being deleted; the default will just be off for new users.
— Users who want middle-click paste should still be able to re-enable it in settings (for example via GNOME Tweaks or a GSettings key).

So the narrative that the feature is gone for good is wrong — it’s simply being turned off by default, not deleted.

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/