Toshiba Satellite Touchpad

In my post about Alps Touchpad Gestures, I said the touchpad on my notebook computer didn't work the same ever since I upgraded my web browser to Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). I specifically own a Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173. The hardware specification is for my computer is the same as Toshiba models 1410-S173, 1410-S174, and 1415-S174. The only differences among these different models are whether or not the operating system is Microsoft Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional, and whether or not Microsoft Works is installed.

In any case, these differences should not affect the touchpad. To review the problem that I've encountered, the Alps Touchpad supports a feature known as touchpad gestures. These gestures mimic the actions of the scrollbars and Back and Forward buttons in Internet Explorer 6. However, I have found that in both Firefox and IE7, the Back and Forward gestures don't work. I've checked on the Toshiba website, and there doesn't seem to be any update for this problem. In fact, its seems that Toshiba is no longer supporting these older notebook computers.

Since I never got a response to my original post, I thought I would ask again if anybody knows of a workaround for this touchpad problem? Thanks.