Occasionally, incorrect characters being outputted

[DrExplosion]

This is pretty strange, and I don't really know how to explain it, but I'll try. Sometimes, when I'm typing online, the character that appears isn't the character I typed.

For example, if I press the ' key it will show up as é. Closing and restarting the browser will temporarily solve the problem, but about 40 minutes later, ' = é again. I thought it was a firefox problem, but it happens in chrome as well. I thought it was a hardware problem, but wouldn't that mean the ' key would always result in a é? I've searched online, but the only solutions seem to be for when the keyboard consistently output incorrect characters.

I'm getting sick of closing my browser every 40 minutes or having to open up character map just so I can finish typing a reply before having to restart my browser, so any help would be appreciated.

[Allan]

Does this happen in every app (ie, Notepad, Word, etc) or only in the browser? Check the language settings in Control Panel.

[Geek-9pm]

You must hit the ' key twice before any vowel.

But why would would you want a ' key before any vowel?
What words require that?

[Raptor]

You're not hitting ctrl + shift at the same time, every time by any chance?

[DrExplosion]

@ Allen - It happened as I was writing a reply to Geek-9pm and Raptor, so I opened word pad, MS Works, iTunes, char map, and the start menu's search bar and tried the keys in them. The keys responded normally. It is only happening in firefox and chrome.

@Geek-9pm - When it happens, it's usually when I'm making contractions, or adding links to comments on reddit for the square brackets. The other ones I only learned about when I decided to see which other keys were effected.

@Raptor - No, I'm only pressing the ' key (or one of the keys I mention below)

Full list of the problem keys and their incorrect characters

pressing the [ key results in ^ (first press gets nothing, pressing any other key makes it show up)
pressing the ] key results in ç
pressing the \ key results in à
pressing the ' key results in è
pressing the / key results in è
pressing the tilde key results in /

[Geek-9pm]

It would seem that you have the wrong keyboard layout and.or language. But you have not said what OS you have, so it is hard to guess. It does seem odd that the problem is only in the web browsers.

In what part of the world doth thou live? Is another language used on that same computer?

The relationship between Unicode and HTML tends to be a difficult topic for many computer professionals, document authors, and web users alike. The accurate representation of text in web pages from different natural languages and writing systems is complicated by the details of character encoding, markup language syntax, font, and varying levels of support by web browsers.

It might be a Unicode thing.

[soybean]

What about Internet Explorer?  Same thing?

As a workaround, type your text in WordPad or Notepad and the copy and paste to your browser.

[Raptor]

What happens if you do hit ctrl + shift when the problem occurs?

[patio]

Have you checked the keyboard language settings ?