Have you tried: alias ls='ls -U' ? I find my ^C usually makes it through if I need it. Sometimes minimizing the terminal or switching desktops also helps.

Have you tried: alias ls='ls -U' ? I find my ^C usually makes it through if I need it. Sometimes minimizing the terminal or switching desktops also helps. (it probably helps that I use a filesystem - btrfs - that is fundamentally append-based so gives a meaningful order even with -U)