So why the heck was my mouse wheel causing the Firefox browser to move back/forward in history when I hit the top/bottom of the page?

This aggravating action has been bugging me for some time now, so you can imagine how relieved I was when I found the solution.

In summary, here is what I had to do:

• Open up the settings page by typing about:config in the address bar and pressing Enter.
• Filter on the word 'mousewheel'.
• Select mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action with the mouse.
• Click using right mouse button and select Modify from the drop-down list.
• Change the value from 2 to 1

What a relief now that I can whiz my way up and down the page with the mouse wheel without worrying anymore.