I'm looking for a way to stop the middle mouse click from causing the browser to start scrolling, and showing the little scroll 'compass'.

I have seen Disabling middle click scrolling with javascript however the solution is a bit more hackey than I would like, and doesn't seem like something I could actually use.

I'm looking for a more definitive This is how you do it or You cannot do that, son.

I am of course open to hacks and workarounds.

Just because S.O. questions look nicer with code, here is what I am using to close tooltips when right or middle clicking.

msg.mousedown(function(e) {

    if (e.which == 2) {   //middle mouse click

        msg.hide();

        e.preventScrolling();   //if only this worked...

    }

    else if (e.which == 3) {   //right mouse click

        msg.hide();

    }

}).bind('contextmenu', function(e) {

    e.preventDefault();

}).click(function(e) {

    e.stopPropagation();

});

edit: jQuery, JavaScript, whatever, let's just all play nicely now :)

Edit 2:

I'm more interested in preventing the little scroll 'compass' than stopping the page from scrolling. I guess that wasn't very clear from my initial description.