Shout out to SensibleSideButtons

I picked up an inexpensive Insignia Bluetooth Mouse (NS-PNM3B8BK) to use with my MacBook Air. Wanted to get rid of the dongle used by the other cheap wireless mice I’d picked up over the years (freeing up one of the precious two USB ports), and a “laser” mouse that didn’t require a mouse pad to be effective; the packaging on this $20 device claimed it “tracks on any surface.” Works well enough for $20. But the two side buttons were unusable with the stock OS X driver, and I couldn’t easily find macOS software for the mouse.

Enter SensibleSideButtons, a very light weight piece of free (donations suggested) software that provides “[a]ctually functional side navigation buttons on your third-party mice in macOS.” It Just Works™. Go get it. (And check out the source code if you want to.)