I remember when everyone was customizing their mouse cursors like they were ringtones.
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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Yeah, there was like, a 15 year period. Where nobody ran standard cursor on their desktops. People would have these crazy animated things that would just drive you crazy.
Good riddance. The mouse cursor should be almost invisible, not draw attention to itself.
Says the person who was jealous of their cool custom cursors 😎
Look at that man, operating a nuclear powerplant terminal with a Starcraft cursor
(/s)
The mouse cursor should be almost invisible, not draw attention to itself.
Linux solved a problem I didn't really know I was having. getting old, lose the cursor because old. Wiggle the mouse around and the cursor grows like the grinches heart long enough for me to see it, then it goes back to normal.
ms.. they put a white circle which you can't see if you press some weird ass keyboard combo that may or may not also open edge and attempt to create a ms account (I dunno if this is true, they just suck)
macOS does the mouse-wiggle thing, too. super-useful!
Keep wigling the mouse and eventually there's nowhere the pointer can possibly hide from you.
You can set a tap of ctrl to make a circle around the cursor
ya that's what I was saying.
microslops idea of finding it is bad...I lose the circle too.
Linux is easily findable.
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On Linux I still use a pretty non standard cursor it is an animated cat
I need the mouse cursor to be better at drawing attention to itself at times though. When you have a couple big monitors often finding where that cursor is hiding becomes a problem.
fortunately, on macOS, all you have to do is wiggle the mouse a bit, and it'll get really big for a moment so you can find it, lol... it's super-helpful!
edit: also, if out of your work is with apps in 'dark mode' (lots of black bgs with white/light text), consider inverting your cursor to be white instead of black. it helps it stand out a bit more without being too distracting.
KDE does that too.
I do increase the size of the cursor permanently, and colour them brightly. It works wonders, a bright pink or cyan or orange cursor always makes me smile a bit when I stop to appreciate it.
Honestly mouse cursor customization is the one thing I miss from KDE, I love having goofy animations as my cursor
Wdym? I run Ubuntu with KDE and there certainly is cursor customization. You can choose one of defaults or download any cursor you want externally.
I switched off of KDE, and now I miss being able to do it
Oh, sorry, I read it wrong
I have an enormous purple pointer so people can see it when I’m screen sharing. Prove me wrong.
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Windows used to have a left handed pointer unless I am mandala’d again
Fun fact: You can edit the files in C:\Windows\Cursors with GIMP and make them look however you want.
You don't even have to do all that. You can literally just change how your cursor looks from your system settings (maybe it's a right-click menu, idr). I know I've opened up the box myself; you can change the size, which way it points, you can even choose black/white or white/black.
In Windows 11, you can't change which way it points anymore.
Unusable. Uninstall it...
Close.
*Mandela
You sure it’s not Mandala…? /s
The Mandala Effect is when your memories repeat in a spiral pattern.
Side note, I watched a video about how Mandela effect is maybe the most American concept ever. So many people kinda ignored/forgot that a guy won the Nobel Prize and was president of a major country for several years, or were never taught it because he's black. Even more couldn't be bothered to pay close enough attention to the spelling of a popular author's name (also foreign). People would rather think that there is some supernatural mystic shared memory gap experience rather than believe we're idiots.
I thought the whole Mandela effect/Berinstain Bears thing was tongue in cheek satire about our faulty memories, but then again I thought flat earth was tongue in cheek satire.
That's how I treat it. I often use the phrase when I'm surprised to learn I remembered something wrong. I don't actually believe I've traveled to an alternate dimension.
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On the left margin of word documents, your cursor changes to left handed, to help the mouse not cover content when selecting stuff near the border.
You can still change the mouse pointer to be this way by default, as well
Most people do be right handed
It actually made me curious, and apparently you can download cursor packs that point the other way :3 so that's neat
I was going to say, I remember Win7 having not just mutliple options but also a left-handed version. I would be surprised if DE's like KDE don't.
It's still there in windows 10 lol
I changed my pointer many years ago to be a lefty!
I remember seeing a lefty coworker who had done this at a previous job and it broke my brain just to watch him use it. So cool and so funny how a minuscule change like that (literally flipping an image that’s just a few pixels) can make such a but mental difference!
They were flippable in the Windows 95/98 era. Is this no longer the case?
I’m left-handed, but I’ve always used a mouse with my right hand... and now I’m wondering if I was unconsciously influenced by the orientation of the pointer.
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I know they assume right-handedness with the pointer's orientation, but I dont see how they assume the method of locomotion. Nothing about the cursor itself would matter if you're using a mouse, a trackball/pad, a controller, etc. 🤨
I don't know if Windows still has this, but you used to have a shitton of options for the style of your cursor, including left-handed oriented pointers. And you could also download more. I used to have my hyperlink pointer as a middle finger instead of the default index finger. 😌
*Correct-handed
I have a coworker who's also left-handed (as am I), but he actually uses a Logitech MX Master 3 (which is very much designed to be held with a right hand), with his left hand. No idea why, it's uncomfortable and he can't use half the buttons correctly.
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I use the mouse left-handed and have never had this thought
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