33 ms·

Chrome removes Backspace to go back

• gjvc 10y ago
  This is most annoying. I have used this for the past twenty years and have not lost form data using it. In any event, chrome seems to remember form contents upon navigating back to a form page. Leave my muscle memory alone please.
  • oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    I think I use backspace about half the time and cmd-left (osx) the other half. I quite like the cmd-left/right because of the symmetry; as far as I know, there is no backspace equivalent for forward. What's still really annoying is that cmd-back doesn't work if a text input is focussed, so navigating back through several pages becomes a game of repeated cmd-left, interspersed with left clicks on a 'non-active' part of the page, or a series of TABs to leave all inputs.
    • bprosnitz 10y ago
      Shift backspace goes forward
      • oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
        So it does. Presumably, not for long, though.
    • mkozlows 10y ago
      I use Cmd-[ on OSX, and it works regardless of focus.
    • jankiel 10y ago
      Shift-backspace is for going forward, I use it all the time
  • rayiner 10y ago
    I lose form data by accidentally using backspace like once a month. Glad to see it go. It's the worst kind of UI modality because it does different things depending on whether you've reached the beginning of the form. I like to mash backspace to clear out a form. Imagine if pressing "CTRL-S" saved if there were edits, but deleted your file if you'd already saved. People who mash "CTRL-S" habitually would be screwed. It's especially pointless now that everyone has a touchpad or touchscreen and can swipe back and forth.
    • unlinker 10y ago
      >everyone has a touchpad or touchscreen No?
    • jamespo 10y ago
      Well apart from the millions of desktop PCs out there. One thing I like about my venerable x220 is the dedicated forward & backward keys that can also be used to switch buffers in emacs etc.
      • rayiner 10y ago
        Even those often have a mouse with back and forward buttons.
    • jhildings 10y ago
      once a month is not that much...
    • stephenr 10y ago
      > I lose form data by accidentally using backspace like once a month Use a browser that will warn you about losing un-submitted form contents before navigating away? > It's especially pointless now that everyone has a touchpad or touchscreen and can swipe back and forth. I think we have very different definitions of "everyone".
      • kijin 10y ago
        > Use a browser that will warn you about losing un-submitted form contents before navigating away? Most browsers don't do this. If you see a warning like that, it's usually triggered by javascript on the web page itself.
  • mrweasel 10y ago
    I actually find Google search annoying to use because the search box hijacks backspace. I'll search for something, decide to go back, and now I'm deleting my search term instead. And the fact that Google searches based on what's in my search box (without having to hit enter) I've actually "lost" search results that way.
    • lstamour 10y ago
      I would expect the opposite behaviour to be annoying though, I've "lost" searches by hitting backspace and unexpectedly going back when I thought I selected the URL bar and waited to delete what was inside. Try to use alternative shortcuts rather than the overloaded Backspace.
    • Daneel_ 10y ago
      Luckily, there's an extension which fixes this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reclaim-backspace-google/hfaimiefgdoaobgfphnmjffaikedkgmo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reclaim-backspace-... I'm an avid backspace-as-back user, so I went searching for a solution as soon as they introduced focus-stealing.
  • pmarreck 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure it was Internet Explorer that started this horrible, terrible user interface fiasco. Backspace (despite the name) is for deletion, should only be for deletion, and avoids confusion by only being for deletion. Period. I don't see what's so hard about control/command-leftbracket or left arrow or whatever you want to assign to "go back". At least you won't accidentally wipe a form. Anyway, this isn't about you or me, as someone else said, because forward state could be theoretically preserved. The problem is the 99% of "regular people" who will hit Backspace, not realize that they DIDN'T just lose their form and can just hit Forward again, and will redo the work and get frustrated.
• jbb555 10y ago
  They don't spend any time fixing everything that's broken with modern computers, instead they spend time changing things that weren't broken. Great.
• ChrisArgyle 10y ago
  Analysis from Chrome devs here https://codereview.chromium.org/1854963002 https://codereview.chromium.org/1854963002 Though I am a frequent user of backspace in Chrome I'm inclined to agree with their decision. Almost no one is using it and casual users are confused by it. I'll just wait for someone to implement the feature in an extension.
  • el_duderino 10y ago
    If it is implemented in an extension, would it require the "Allow access to all of the web sites I visit" permission? I'm always a bit apprehensive to enable those sort of extensions.
    • egeozcan 10y ago
      Wait someone to implement it then extract source or implement it yourself, but rather than going through the store, add the code you inspected/wrote to the browser by enabling "Developer mode" in the Extensions (chrome://extensions/) then clicking "Load unpacked extension". This would be a very simple piece of code so getting no updates is actually better for security in this case IMHO.
      • runlevel1 10y ago
        Chrome now disables it unless it's in the app store: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2811969?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2811969?hl=en EDIT: And prompts you to disable it at startup if it's unpacked.
        • egeozcan 10y ago
          Well, yes, having a popup[1] on startup can be less or more annoying than submitting the thing to the Chrome store yourself depending on how often you restart your browser. [1]: http://i.imgur.com/qX8bNcl.png http://i.imgur.com/qX8bNcl.png
          • 10y ago
• oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  One of the contributors states: "Building an extension for this should be very simple." Why on earth isn't there just a generic keyboard-shortcut preference where I can control every possible browser action and its associated keyboard shortcut? In fact, why isn't this available at an OS level? Surely it would remove a lot of unnecessary duplicate code.
  • guard-of-terra 10y ago
    "Why on earth isn't there just a generic keyboard-shortcut preference where I can control every possible browser action and its associated keyboard shortcut? In fact, why isn't this available at an OS level?" There is one, on KDE level. Any KDE app has generic-looking hotkey remapper under settings menu. It just works.
    • pflats 10y ago
      It is also available on OS X in the Keyboard prefpane; so long as it's a menu item, it can get a shortcut. System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Application Shortcuts -> [+]
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • mkj 10y ago
    Yeah, it is an OS level thing on OSX. "Quit Chrome" mapped to cmd-shift-control-something-Q instead, for example. As long as it has a menu item to match on.
    • oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
      Of course it does. For some reason, I always forget about this - maybe it's because it doesn't work in the most-intuitive way (hunt down system prefs pane, enter menu text exactly as it appears), but it's good to know they're trying to make this work. Unfortunately, backspace is one of the keys that can't be used as a shortcut.
  • 10y ago
• spo81rty 10y ago
  This has always been annoying when doing it on accident. Good riddance!
  • gjvc 10y ago
    Chrome remembers form contents upon navigating back to a form page.
    • lokedhs 10y ago
      Sometimes pages are too clever such that it's not possible to navigate back to the form. And I'm using the word clever in its most negative way here.
    • oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
      Not everyone really understands the concept of forward/back. In my experience, back is fairly well understood, but forward is a bit trickier. I guess a number of people, having accidentally gone back, either don't understand that forward will 'undo' their mistake, or just don't understand they've even gone back. That number, and the negative result, probably outweighs the number of people who will be annoyed by this change, especially since - as many point out - there are many alternatives to the backspace shortcut.
• imaginenore 10y ago
  Nooooooooo!
• ruipgil 10y ago
  I might be the minority here, but I think that using the backspace to go back is counter intuitive. In my mind backspace is to delete something, and I always worry about that.
  • anotheryou 10y ago
    Right. The change in context is not clear enough for the average user (Text Field or History) and the consequences are really bad (loss of input text).
    • stephenr 10y ago
      Does Chrome not prompt you about losing un-submitted changes to a form when triggering a navigation event?
      • coldpie 10y ago
        I've never seen a browser do this. It's not clear to me it's a good idea, considering how widely input fields are used behind the scenes. Websites can request that the browser ask before navigating away, but I don't think a browser could reasonably do this automatically without getting it wrong annoyingly often.
        • stephenr 10y ago
          Safari does it, and I don't remember the last time I got a false positive.
      • lstamour 10y ago
        Most times, but not always. But it's better now at remembering what you typed if you accidentally navigate back then hit forward. I imagine in some situations I could accidentally lose form or input focus, hit backspace, and then lose everything. This could be an app that manually captures key presses with JavaScript rather than a regular input.
• exabrial 10y ago
  THANK YOU!!!!!! Progress
• kibwen 10y ago
  This is going to sound hyperbolic, I'm sure, but backspace-as-back is enormously important to my browsing experience. When I recently installed Ubuntu I had a small moment of panic when I realized that hitting backspace in Firefox performed some Ubuntu-specific thing rather than navigating backwards (as it does in Windows), but fortunately there's an about:config pref to re-enable the behavior. Just my two cents.
  • Eridrus 10y ago
    Why is installing an extension that supports this functionality unacceptable?
    • kevingrahl 10y ago
      Not OP, but the extension mentioned in the bug tracker requires permission to read and change content on all websites. That's just not right for something like this.
    • dvhh 10y ago
      Third party or first party ? Third party cause trust issue, and could change to behavior depending on the owner whim. First party would be fine but need to be maintained. Also extension have a discoverability issue. I am pretty sure that the chrome team got the telemetry data to justify this "feature" removal. But I am really more in the "use a flag camp"
      • fareesh 10y ago
        You can write one pretty easily I'm sure if you're worried about the trust issue. I suspect it is a few lines of code at most. I realize this is not ideal, but it would work. Use a flag is the ideal case for me as well.
  • tjalex 10y ago
    Agreed -- I am surprised (/disappointed?) they didn't add a replacement shortcut e.g. Alt+Backspace or something similar.
• crazygringo 10y ago
  Finally! It's about time. I don't know who ever thought having a command that didn't use a modifier key was a good idea -- it's not just about losing form data (even if that's protected against), a webpage can have all sorts of "state" you don't want to lose. Also, what's so hard with tapping Cmd+Left or Ctrl+Left to go back? It's all I've ever done, incredibly intuitive, and simply to do with one hand (using the right Cmd button), at least on most keyboards I've seen.
  • thiht 10y ago
    Alt is on the left of the keyboard, Left is on the right of the keyboard... It's annoying to use both hands for such a frequent task
    • recursive 10y ago
      On every keyboard I've ever seen, there's another alt on the right side of the spacebar which works equally well.
• Jedd 10y ago
  Chrome / Chromium have a habit of making these arbitrary changes that seriously annoy some (arguably small) percentage of their users, while claiming that it makes it simpler / better for everyone else, while explaining impatiently why it's infeasible to make the now missing feature a configuration option. Evidently the kinds of people that can't be bothered going into the Advanced Configuration Settings page would be confused by an additional item in the Advanced Configuration Settings page. I never used the backspace button for back (though it's probably what's mapped to my mouse button #8 - I'll know on the next upgrade), but I did get mightily annoyed by two changes a while back, and am always happy to bring them up whenever there's a story about Chrom* devs doing this kind of thing. 1. snap-to-mouse - while dragging the scrollbar, if you move the mouse further than ~80 pixels away from the scrollbar column, the page jumps back to the original location - apparently MS Windows users love this feature, but chrome/chromium is the only application I've found on GNU/Linux that does this, and 2. clicking inside the URL bar selects the whole contents - apparently MS Windows users are used to this feature, but chrome/chromium is the only application I've found on GNU/Linux that does this. No idea what the defaults are for OSX, and, really, it doesn't matter - these features should be sensitive to extant defaults on whatever desktop environment the browser finds itself running on.
  • marcoperaza 10y ago
    Maintaining software quality is hard. Each additional toggle doubles the size of your test matrix.
    • Jedd 10y ago
      I totally appreciate this. I really do. My defence here is that the test matrix for the way it worked already existed. And the change would have included some unit tests. Further, neither the way it worked, or was changed to work, is an especially complex mechanism. Developer explanations in the bug reports for both were not 'this is going to be hard to maintain', but instead were 'having this configurable will confuse users'.
  • lstamour 10y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me if the defaults on OS X are the same. #2 in particular, I consider that to be sensible autofocus behavior. If you don't want to replace the URL but instead modify it, just hit an arrow key. Partly this is because there are shortcuts to select the address bar to begin with, so I rarely use a mouse. It's generally consistent on mobile platforms too, to select the entire URL. You have to hold your finger a second time to position the cursor because the most common interaction with the URL bar usually means jumping somewhere entirely different. Edit: they could maintain a flag to change these behaviours though, if they were a concern. You could also build your own copy of the browser, patched as you wish... ;-)
• davb 10y ago
  They say 0.04% of page views are a result of pressing backspace. 0.04% sounds small but imagine how many page views per month there are, globally, with Chrome. That's. Significant number. Backspace sure is an unusual navigation choice these days, and perhaps wouldn't make sense to code in new software. But in browsers, backspace to navigate back is expect behaviour. This isn't the first time the Chrome or Chromium teams have made sweeping changes based on usage stats, pissing off the minority who use those features and pushing ever closer to a browser with only the lowest common denominator features that everyone uses.
• FollowSteph3 10y ago
  I think this is very good. I can't tell you the number of times I've lost form data by hitting backspace. For those wondering how, if you do control backspace to erase a word etc igs very easy to miss, especially as you transition between word delete and single character delete. The other common use case for errors is when u think you're in a field editing and you're actually not, bam, you just lost all your form data. I also like the idea that backspace is for text editing and not for a second feature such as navigation. For enter yes but not backspace
• jneal 10y ago
  I've personally always used alt+left to go back. I know backspace does the same thing, but the only reason I know that is because I seem to hit more frequently than you'd expect while not focused on a form field causing my browser to go back unexpectedly. I've never lost data, though, it always seems to persists when I go forward.
• dandare 10y ago
  "We have UseCounters showing that 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form interaction. The latter are often cases where the user loses data. Years of user complaints have been enough that we think it's the right choice to change this given the degree of pain users feel by losing their data and because every platform has another keyboard combination that navigates back." Personally I am shocked that the Chromium team ignored years of user complaints before they decided to fix what their own usability studies found to be a worthless yet painful gimmick.
  • lstamour 10y ago
    IE compatibility across platforms is why most if not all browsers behave this way. And even then, it probably started with Netscape or actually it probably pre-dates the graphical web, I think Lynx uses it to go back. I remember being frustrated by this "feature" as late as 1997 on dialup.
  • Captain_Usher 10y ago
    I'm shocked they reacted to the complaints at all. Chrome is infamous for painful UX blunders that Google refuses to acknowledge, let alone fix. Mouse thumb buttons are permanently bound to forward and back, the only workaround is to use your mouse's driver or a third-party input mapper to bind them to something else. The Android version cannot re-order tabs (or use extensions. Seriously.) The Google product forums are a sad wasteland of people with simple problems shouting into the void. Here's a thread from 2010: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/R-wESj1EIk8 https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/R-wESj... These advanced power users want the unfathomable ability to install Chrome in a different directory. The only solution involves downloading the Windows "Junction" utility and creating a symbolic link. Surprisingly, an actual employee (uh, "Googler," whatever that means) deigns to appear, but only to inform everyone that there is no solution except to download Chrome from Google Pack. The Pack version won't let you pick a location either, but its default is different, or at least it was until Google Pack was discontinued. You know what, I think I'm just going to see how Firefox has been doing. I can't even remember why I switched.
• optforfon 10y ago
  Anyone want to place bets on how long till Firefox copies them?
  • kijin 10y ago
    When Firefox copies this "feature", at least there'll be an about:config option to disable it.
    • qb45 10y ago
      In Firefox, backspace has defaulted to "scroll up" for years now and yes, browser.backspace_action in about:config controls this.
      • kijin 10y ago
        My Firefox has browser.backspace_action set to the default value (zero), and it goes back to the previous page when I press the backspace key. It's been less than 36 hours since I lost several hundred words of work because of this, so I'm pretty sure the default behavior is "go back" as of the latest stable version (46.0.1).
        • qb45 10y ago
          Maybe they switched it back at some time. I remember changing it from 1 or 2 to 0 on few installations.
          • kijin 10y ago
            It seems like 0 (go back) has always been the default on Windows builds. On Linux it used to be 1 (scroll up) but they changed it to 2 (do nothing) in 2006. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action I made a half-assed attempt to migrate my Windows Firefox profile to Linux a while ago, which probably explains why I'm seeing the Windows behavior on both platforms :(
• EdSharkey 10y ago
  This feels a bit like how Esc was nerfed over the years in Firefox and others until it essentially did nothing. It used to mean STOP. All sockets were closed, the page stopped loading, and I think way waaay back, even animated gifs stopped cycling and JavaScript timeouts and intervals were cancelled. Single-page webapps were the death of Esc, it was too confusing to users to have a page suddenly hang because they pressed Esc for some reason and all the XHR connections silently closed. "Stopping" just no longer made sense. Just going to need to train the old timers on the new key strokes. It is sad though when convenient controls are taken away.
  • dceddia 10y ago
    Is there any replacement for that Esc=STOP functionality? Every now and again I run into a site that will display some content, and then 1-2 seconds later, cover it up with a full-page ad or signup modal or whatever. I wish I could just refresh and hit "Esc" really quick, like the good old days.
    • garblegarble 10y ago
      I either leave the website immediately or use adblock to remove their modal stuff, adblock has the advantage of being somewhat persistent
    • EdSharkey 10y ago
      At the time that Firefox killed off Esc, I was part of the old school crowd that complained. After the smoke cleared, I came to the conclusion that Firefox had crossed a threshold and transformed from being a networked document display application to being an operating environment that was a platform for applications. Javascript, the DOM and CSS had advanced to the point where keyboard controls biased towards convenient document browsing no longer made sense. I'd be all for Firefox removing the Backspace default keybinding even though it would slightly inconvenience me since that's the key I use to go back.
  • makecheck 10y ago
    Or maybe, it is well past time for browsers to have two concepts: “page” and “application” windows. That way, web sites that are really trying to be applications can have one set of logical keystrokes, default security models, etc. and plain web pages can have another set. They could be further distinguished by some kind of difference in window frame.
• lpsz 10y ago
  Sometimes, it's better without these features. E.g. on Mac, dragging left in the browser is a gesture for going back to the previous page, and I can't count how many times I've accidentally triggered that while filling out a web form or interacting with a page. Isn't the back button and the keyboard shortcut enough?
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    Ctrl + ← is fine too.
• yAnonymous 10y ago
  I hope they also remove support for forward/back mouse buttons. I keep accidently pressing those.
• grandalf 10y ago
  I've never used backspace for nav intentionally, and it has caused annoying data loss for me a few times. It's never made sense to me why this behavior was ever added to browsers. The logical choice would have been the left arrow key (since there is a corresponding right arrow).
  • pfg 10y ago
    > The logical choice would have been the left arrow key (since there is a corresponding right arrow). Without some sort of modifier key, this would come with the same set of problems, i.e. failing to focus a text field while using it to move the cursor would trigger navigation. It's also used to scroll horizontally, so it would break other functionality. Alt + LeftArrow already works.
  • rmetzler 10y ago
    you don't navigate left through your history, you navigate back. That's why it is the backspace key.
  • rmetzler 10y ago
    you don't navigate left through your history, you navigate back. That's why it is the backspace key.
• sammorrowdrums 10y ago
  Good riddance! This is such a terrible double-purpose binding. When bindings seriously are common typing commands, that are not just bound, but bound in a way that is often destructive, it just needs to die. Anyone who thinks this shouldn't die is basically a bad person. It was an affliction, and one of the poorest design choices in history. :-p
• brudgers 10y ago
  Having a friend who often operates their keyboard by the old stick between their teeth method, I'd like to see an analysis demonstrating that the breaking change improves accessibility. Particularly since the alternative posed in the thread is the chorded alt-left.
  • goda90 10y ago
    I imagine this friend could benefit from a keyboard with extra programmable buttons. Of course you can't expect that for all accessibility needs.
    • brudgers 10y ago
      I've known Tim for almost twenty years. He's been on the web as long as I've known him...and given he was making money as a freelance CAD jockey when we met, I suspect longer than that. We'd been in school together a couple of years [me continuously, Tim off and on as being a quad comes with a raft of issues beyond asshat developers breaking the web] when we were both working in the computer lab of the college of architecture. Needless to say, the lab wasn't uniformly equipped with special keyboards nor all the machines loaded with custom adaptive software. Interface standardization and a resourcefulness I am utterly in awe of, allowed him to just do what needed doing. This is breaking a standard interface. One group of people upon whom it most likely places a burden are those who are likely to have other shit to deal with already. Google ain't mailing out special keyboards to everyone who might need them. I don't imagine you're stepping up to fill that need either.
• rocky1138 10y ago
  I don't mind removing backspace, but this better not remove the functionality of my back button on my mouse. That's one of the worst things about having to boot into OSX at work.
• IvanK_net 10y ago
  I wanted to use Ctrl+N, Ctrl+O and Ctrl+T shortcuts in my webapp. I reported a bug 3 years ago https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=321810 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=321810 which is not fixed yet, but they have "fixed" Backspace ... that seems crazy to me.
  • qb45 10y ago
    And what's next to override, the power button? I wholly agree with this WONTFIX.
    • fixermark 10y ago
      It makes it quite difficult to write a terminal emulator web app. Chrome, at least, can resolve this issue by bundling up your web app as a Chrome app; apps launched from the Chrome App Store can launch into a context where the standard Chrome modifier keys aren't mapped.
      • emodendroket 10y ago
        Why don't you define an alternate button that acts like ctrl? It's the same as how in Windows remote desktop you have to use ctrl-alt-end instead of ctrl-alt-del because the software can't override the handling of that keypress
        • fixermark 10y ago
          Probably for similar reasons to the ones people have expressed in this thread about not wanting to have to re-learn backspace. ;) Perfectly doable; doesn't solve the problem of not mapping to what one is accustom to. I'm an emacs user. If Ctrl-c does something different from starting a chord, I'm gonna have a bad time.
          • emodendroket 10y ago
            I switched from using a Mac keyboard to using a Windows one when I was still a heavy emacs user; I think you'll get adjusted much faster than you think.
• Mithaldu 10y ago
  So they applied the wrong fix, to a problem that had been solved a decade ago. The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. Their solution: Make it harder to move away? The actual solution implemented more than a decade ago: Cache history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history while maintaining form contents.
  • pfg 10y ago
    The problem with that solution is, at least in my experience, that it doesn't really work reliably for most "rich" web apps , which are more and more common. (I understand that this is a controversial topic in its own light.) I can understand where they're coming from, and I'd be fine with a browser extension. Hopefully the one a Chrome developer is working on[1] will be available before this Chrome release hits stable. [1]: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016#c22 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016...
    • Mithaldu 10y ago
      Sadly implementing it as an extension is a security issue, as mentioned elsewhere plenty.
      • pfg 10y ago
        I seem to have read this as "that extension won't be a content script (i.e. require access to all websites, like the existing extension)" initially, but on second reading, that might not be the case (and might, in fact, not be possible at all with the current APIs). Not too happy about having to add that kind of extension unless it's released by some trusted publisher ...
• jordache 10y ago
  on the topic of annoying details that browser makers overlooks. In safari, when opening a new tab, the focus is not on the address bar. I have to always to Cmd+L before start typing. The address bar focus works when you don't have a homepage defined (so a blank page), but who doesn't configure a default home page? arrghh
• okonomiyaki3000 10y ago
  Thank the gods! I can't imagine who ever thought backspace as back was a good idea in the first place.
• marcusarmstrong 10y ago
  Finally! I can get rid of my third party extension to get rid of this insane behavior.
• ogreveins 10y ago
  I would very much like them to revert this change. Using backspace to go back has been in my browsing habits since I began using the internet. Atl+left or right is annoying. Either give us a checkbox or revert it. Please. Pretty please.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• pfarnsworth 10y ago
  Thank GOD. So many times I've been filling out forms and sometimes I hit backspace to delete something, and maybe I clicked on a dropdown, but it goes back one page and I lose everything. Not the end of the world, but pretty annoying and I'm glad they're removing this.
• alexc05 10y ago
  > "We're doing this via a flag so that we can control this behavior should there be sufficient outcry." I love that they decided to do this. I think the justification for taking it away is really good. I also think that the decision to disable via "flag" shows some prescience with respect to how the public reacts to things. Great move and a template for "sound product development".
  • StyloBill 10y ago
    Yeah, except that they're not doing it this way. >We ended up not having a flag for this. Even if we had it, it would only have been in place for a single release.
    • alexc05 10y ago
      Oh! I didn't get that far. Thanks for pointing that out. From a "best practices" point of view it was a good choice that they at least started with a thought to potential customer reaction. I do wish they'd left it in. Oh well. Incidentally thanks for the comment as well, my post above has a few downvotes and whenever that happens I always wonder "what I did wrong"
• jdhzzz 10y ago
  Thank you.
• lr 10y ago
  On OS X, Command-left bracket has worked on Chrome, Safari, Firefox (and probably more) for years. Not sure about Windows or Linux, but keyboard shortcuts are very well established across browsers in this way (like Command-L, and all of the Emacs bindings like Control-A, Control-E, etc.).
• Kiro 10y ago
  As someone who constantly gets screwed by this: finally! Example from literally one minute ago: a cool thing was going on in a Twitch stream and I wanted to hype in the chat, misclicked the chat box so backspace went back to the stream list instead making me miss the moment.
• usaphp 10y ago
  I am glad they are making this change. I've lost my form data by accidentally going back while trying to erase something in a text field so many times.
• soperj 10y ago
  And i'll never use chrome again.
• Osiris 10y ago
  This is why I switched to Vivaldi. All the shortcut keys are customizable. It also includes mouse gestures for quick back/forward with the mouse. I prefer having the choice than someone else dictating.
• floatboth 10y ago
  Good. I always set browser.backspace_action to do nothing in Firefox, because this is SO infuriating. You think you have a text field focused but you actually don't (e.g. accidental mouse click removed the focus), you press Backspace and BOOM! suddenly you're on the previous page. Ctrl/Cmd+[ and ] is the real shortcut!
  • itslennysfault 10y ago
    ⌘←→ too... Not sure why there need to be so many back button shortcuts. Glad they removed backspace.
    • bhauer 10y ago
      Yes, and for what it's worth, I feel Space to page down is another oddball one. I guess it's for the supremely lazy who don't want to have to move their finger to the Page-Down key.
      • hussong 10y ago
        Call me supremely lazy, but I use the spacebar all the time (Thinkpad), since my thumb already rests on it and it's so big that I can't miss it. I even prefer it over scrolling. Page-Down means I have to almost move my hand away from the keyboard (middle finger to the top right corner, can't hit it with other fingers because display) -- that feels like grabbing for the mouse...
      • duskwuff 10y ago
        The space bar is large and easy to reach. It's also present on some keyboards that don't have a discrete Page Down key (e.g, Apple laptops).
      • 0xfeba 10y ago
        But at least when you are entering text but mistakenly don't have focus on the text box, you can just scroll back up. Where with backspace, sorry bud... gotta enter all that text again.
      • 10y ago
• kaonashi 10y ago
  Next up: remove form submit on return from textarea fields.
• itslennysfault 10y ago
  ⌘← master race!!! ...but seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I've tried to hit "delete" (backspace on mac) to delete something I had selected in a web app and had it navigate back losing my unsaved changes I'd have a couple bucks. It's rare, but it's annoying when it does happen.
• swingedseraph 10y ago
  Do I like this? Yes. Should it be an immutable part of the interface and not configurable? No. That's ridiculous.
• azinman2 10y ago
  I love how most of the comments on the bug tracker are "I've never lost data so therefore no one has and this should go back because I'm used to it." Typical myopic power users...
  • ryanlol 10y ago
    What's wrong with that attitude? Given the lack of alternatives being offered that seems like a perfectly acceptable complaint.
    • azinman2 10y ago
      Given lol is in your username I can't tell if you're trolling or serious...
      • ryanlol 10y ago
        Oh I'm entirely serious. Obviously nobody thinks that nobody else has ever lost data by accidentally pressing backspace, but I think most people can agree that it's simply not a good enough reason to completely remove such an established feature.
        • azinman2 10y ago
          If you read the comments on the bug it's lots of people's position that losing data isn't real ("I've never had it happen", "Chrome remembers form data", etc). That's a silly position since it does happen, and this kind of error is the one that generally affects novices the most who are the least capable to deal with it or understand what happened. If you've ever lost data and especially don't know why/how, then you know that super sucks and shouldn't ever happen period. Removing this prevents data loss, that's a UX win. It's bizarre that it's happening in 2016, but better late than never. You still have power user alt/cmd-left so the keyboard can navigate, and if you're super duper keyboard person then you can install one of the vim navigation extensions or use an extension that preserves the backspace. You say established feature, but I bet if you surveyed something like 20% or less would know about this.
• april1stislame 10y ago
  Never lost data on firefox by going forward after going back for accident while writting on a form, but whatever... Google only wants dumb users who can't see past what they're doing.
• kbenson 10y ago
  About time! I've been seriously annoyed a number of times when doing text/data entry (on this very site!) where somehow I removed focus from the input, and then tried to erase some text, only to find it going back a page, and my input is gone when I browse back forward (this problem is exacerbated by inputs that don't exist until Javascript creates them from some page event). When using a laptop with a sensitive touchpad, this can get really bad.
• dhd415 10y ago
  I think comment #32 (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016#c32 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016...) is worth highlighting: If you can fill out a formular field correctly without losing focus, you are not part of Chrome's target audience. edit: Had to type this four times due to accidently going back.
  • mstade 10y ago
    Hah, that's funny! But also, comment #35 is on point: > The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. > Your solution: Make it harder to move away. > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history by reusing cache and maintaining form contents. (Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016#c35 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016...) I never have this problem in Safari, and I use backspace all the time for navigating back.
    • djrogers 10y ago
      > I never have this problem in Safari, and I use backspace all the time for navigating back. That's funny, because I've got a brand new install of El Cap in from top me, and backspace does nothing in Safari. Maybe you turned on an option or accessibility feature somewhere?
      • theOnliest 10y ago
        Ditto...this (along with the fact that the width of tabs expands to fill the entire bar) is one of the main reasons I stopped using Safari and went back to Firefox.
• emodendroket 10y ago
  I have to say, I find it a lot more common that I accidentally lose focus inside a text box and go back than that I intentionally use that shortcut.
• davesque 10y ago
  I agree with this. Accidentally going back when you lose focus on a text field is super annoying.
• ryanlol 10y ago
  Because adding customizable keybinds is too difficult? Hell, if configs looking scary to normal users is a problem why not just have a json/sqlite/whatever file in the profile directory?
• mstade 10y ago
  I wonder if this is in any way related to the exceptionally annoying thing on google.com, where if you hit backspace it doesn't navigate back, but starts removing characters from your search. It does this with other keypresses too, presumably so you can just keep typing till you find whatever you're looking for, but it's a flagrant disregard for my action of moving focus from the input field. In any event, I use backspace to navigate back all the time, so this is sure to annoy me to no end. Especially since I use multiple browsers, and it'll be hard to break habits. Ah well..
  • rmetzler 10y ago
    Yeah, Chromium on Linux comes without the backspace history navigation for quite some time and I configured it to do the right thing for me: going back in history.
• jasonm23 10y ago
  Wontfix - just apply the worst possible, cruddy fix and shut down discussion. Forgive me if I do not applaud.
• givinguflac 10y ago
  One more plus for Vivaldi.
• kruhft 10y ago
  Good, now I don't have to fix one of my sites to handle backspace 'properly' that uses a custom keyboard handler for input. What a pain.
• klodolph 10y ago
  I'm going to take a somewhat contrarian view and say, "Thank you, Chrome developers." It's always easy to tell apart the people who know shortcuts from the people who don't, if you watch them use their computers. Someone with a few shortcuts on tap will zoom around their monitors, switching between mouse and keyboard only when necessary. But there are a few shortcuts and user interface quirks that are too outdated and weird, and only serve to surprise and annoy us. They herald from an earlier age when people were still figuring things out in new UI paradigms. For example, these days, you expect the scroll wheel to scroll up and down in a scrolling view. However, my coworker was changing some project settings in Visual Studio the other day, and he tried to scroll through the settings while a drop-down menu in the settings had focus. It scrolled through the menu options, selecting them, instead of scrolling through the view. He had to cancel the changes he was making and open the window again, because he couldn't remember what was originally selected. This is the worst kind of surprise. Something you thought was just supposed to let you look at different parts of the interface instead modified the data you were looking at. Backspace to go back is a similar surprise. It's supposed to delete text, but instead it can navigate away from a page entirely, if you are in the wrong state when you press backspace. For the same reason, I'm even getting sick of the old middle mouse button paste, since it's too easy to press when I'm scrolling. Forward and back navigation are already mapped to alt + left and right arrow. Let's reserve backspace for deleting text. (I'm not happy that it sometimes means "navigate up a level", but that might tell you what kind of computer I had growing up.)
  • mstade 10y ago
    But there are better solutions. Comment #35 in that thread actually provides one: > The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. > Your solution: Make it harder to move away. > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history by reusing cache and maintaining form contents. (Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016#c35 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=608016...) Safari does this, for instance, and yes it does happen that I accidentally the whole thing by hitting backspace, but it's OK because I know if I just go forward again, it'll all still be there – fully intact.
• dc2 10y ago
  I just hit backspace to go back to HN after reading this... and it didn't work.
• eropple 10y ago
  So I'm going to need another Chrome extension, further exacerbating the gong show that is Chrome battery life, for something I use all the time. Awesome.
• perezdev 10y ago
  >Are you suggesting that the only remaining options are Alt-Left (a two-hand key combo for that I have to move my mouse hand towards the keyboard, and then back) I guess no one told this guy that a standard keyboard has two ALT keys.
  • vidarh 10y ago
    You are making assumptions that are invalid for a whole lot of keyboard layouts.
    • perezdev 10y ago
      Must be why I said standard.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • vidarh 10y ago
        And which layout would that be? Because it's not standard in fairly large parts of the world. I don't know whether or not the presence of a right Alt or Alt Gr instead is most common worldwide, it seems you do. Do you have a source?
      • JdeBP 10y ago
        No, that would be because you didn't know what standard keyboard layouts are. * CAN/CSA Z243.200-92 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: https://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/images/ti/clavier.gif https://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/images/ti/clavier.gif * DIN 2137-1:2012-06 T3 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:German-T2-Keyboard-Prototype-May-2012.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:German-T2-Keyboard-Proto... * ABNT NBR 10346 2 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: http://www.windowsintegral.com/wp-content/uploads/Teclado_ABNT21.jpg http://www.windowsintegral.com/wp-content/uploads/Teclado_AB...
        • 10y ago
• retbull 10y ago
  Good fuck that was annoying. I actually came up with a new work flow for all browsers because of this. I always open links in a new tab so if I want to go back I have to close the tab and if I want to go forward I will middle click to open in a new tab. This only falls apart when I run into a multi-page form or application that requires text. When that happens I hate that backspace goes back.
• Hermel 10y ago
  Finally! I don't know how often I accidentally navigated away from a page by pressing backspace while writing in a textbox.
• Kadin 10y ago
  Striking a blow for mediocrity. Ugh. If there was really a problem with data loss, the better solution would seem to be warning the user before navigating away from the page. Removing a widely-used single-key behavior in order to protect users from themselves seems like a bad prioritization. It'd be nice if we could still have software that is unashamedly not trying to target some sort of Archie Bunker "low information" user. Even the big Linux distros seem obsessed with making things easy for some hypothetical moron-in-a-hurry, at the expense of actual users who know what they're doing. It's unfortunate, and it seems to be a sort of antipattern that's infected a lot of software design. It wasn't always this way: there used to be an expectation that users would learn to use software, and that like any tool, if misused you could mess things up. Somewhere along the line, we've decided that it's unacceptable to tell users that they need to learn how to use software instead of blindly stabbing at it and expecting it to protect them. I'm not against sane defaults or warning users before they really do something horrible, but the current trend towards ripping out anything and everything that might possibly be 'confusing' seems to be far overstepping the mark. Firefox isn't much better, but at least they haven't Nerfed the back button.
• autoreleasepool 10y ago
  I can finally uninstall BackspaceMeansBackspace!
• mixedCase 10y ago
  Why must every browser out there suck? Servo seems like the last hope if it gets integrated into FF or a FF-like browser.
• ravenstine 10y ago
  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• nikanj 10y ago
  I can't count the number of times I've noticed a typo in a form, hit shift-tab one time too many or few, hit backspace and ended up losing all of the info I filled in. The forward button mostly just leads to "resubmit form data?", instead of bringing me back.
• rietta 10y ago
  NOOO! That's how I go back! And use the space bar to scroll up and down!
• djwbrown 10y ago
  Cumulative time wasted using 'Command+[': none. Cumulative time wasted due to overloading of the backspace key: hours. Relying on current context to determine the behavior of backspace was a terrible idea from the start. To hell with your muscle memory. Re-learn a shortcut that makes sense, and which will save you time one day, rather than insisting with hacker-machismo that you've never lost data in a form.
• pbiggar 10y ago
  Well done Chrome. While it's the way that I go back and I now need to change my habits, this is the kind of hard decision that you need to make to have a really great product. They weighed the upsides and downsides, and pissed off a small subset of people (esp on HN who are likely to be the backspace-as-back users) to make a better experience. Bravo!
• _pferreir_ 10y ago
  As a web application developer, I second the motion to officially thank the Chrome development team for this. "Backspace" triggering "back" is a usability disaster, and not only for inexperienced users. We recently had issues with a 3rd party editor widget losing focus due to a bug, which led to people accidentally triggering "back" and losing their data (it was a rich text field, so you can imagine how much of a problem that was). Sure, the problem here was the widget, but using such a commonly pressed key as the shortcut for a potentially destructive operation is a recipe for disaster. More advanced users have the option to use a custom extension, or even mouse gestures. Just develop an "Advanced Chrome" plugin and the problem will be solved. As a side note, it's interesting to see how such a small change (which, as mentioned above is even reversible) can trigger such an outcry. I've read stuff such as "I've been using this shortcut for 20 years" or "I don't want an extension"... are those even arguments? Yes, applications should be "user-centred" but the "user" here is a collective of thousands or millions of people with their own incompatible opinions. There is a (very good) reason for this change and I've seen zero achievable solutions that would not imply it.
• hkjgkjy 10y ago
  All True Hackers use shift-h anyways ;-) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...
  • stygiansonic 10y ago
    I think I found out about Vimium through an HN post/comment and I've been using it ever since. It's pretty much the first Chrome extension I get after a fresh install, along with uBlock origin.
  • exception_e 10y ago
    I was going to post this but first did a /vimium (Vimium search for the word "vimium") in the thread to see if it was already discussed, lol. Vimium is incredible.
• jijojv 10y ago
  Thank you. This is the right fix for 99% users who'd otherwise lose data
• bluhue 10y ago
  Space-bar next!
• OJFord 10y ago
  Wahoo! I've only ever done this by accident.
• avehn 10y ago
  People who cannot use a mouse or see a screen, who rely exclusively on keyboard commands, will be greatly affected by this change. Global Accessibility Awareness Day https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/
  • phasmantistes 10y ago
    Those folks are already using Alt+<arrow keys>, because that is guaranteed to work no matter what element is focused.
• daveloyall 10y ago
  I got to this thread late, sorry. Here's the thing about Chrome... They don't want power users. Remember when you first switched to Chrome? That sleek little pastel colored window elegantly fast. It worked on most websites. It was notably fast on Gmail, which at the time was the slowest website you spent a lot of time on. You didn't mind that Chrome wasn't configurable. You might even have thought that it would become more configurable over time. You were wrong. You were never the target audience. I once had a infuriating (to me, at the time) argument with a Googler who was responsible for an internal app which performed better in Firefox than in Chrome. He said "Use Firefox!". I didn't get it at the time. He was a power user, all his co-workers were power users, and thus the internal app was only used by power users... They all used firefox! At least for real work... (Pretty sure they all had Chrome on hand for Mail and Maps, etc...) Anyway, the internal app correctly targeted firefox. Meanwhile, back in time, when Chrome came out, Firefox started hemorrhaging users. Mozilla reacted. Today, it's as fast or faster than Chrome for most sites I use. And it's configurable! If you are reading this, and don't have the latest beta or Nightly FF installed, you should go do so now! Really, trying firefox after being away from years will make you smile and renew your faith in humanity. :) But unfortunately, this story doesn't end there... I think some firefox devs see Chrome as a rolemodel... Maybe they want to compete with Google for those users who are not you! As a small example, I offer this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1118285 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1118285 Note the posts that are marked "Comment hidden (advocacy)". You can click the [+] to show what was hidden (comments from power users). There are niche browsers for power users, and there are extensions... But there isn't a mainstream browser for power users because power users aren't mainstream. I'm just describing the problem (well, I hope!), I'm sorry but I don't have a solution.
• soheil 10y ago
  This is actually a no brainer, many times I have accidentally tapped on my mousepad while typing and took the focus away from a textarea then noticed a typo and tried to delete it and baaam you're no longer on that page and possibly all the text you typed has gone into the abyss.
• smegel 10y ago
  So it takes 51 versions before common sense kicks in? Have a pat on the back.
• henvic 10y ago
  What the hell? Just ask the user if he intended to go backwards when there is a form on focus or something.
• dredmorbius 10y ago
  Google Chrome have fixed a longstanding UI/UX bug and state overload of the Backspace key Backspace key in Chrome browser no longer navigates backward, but instead is limited to its initial and rightful role: deleting the previous character under the pointer (mouse / text cursor). I swear by His Noodliness I'd ranted on this at G+ some time, though unfortunately since Microsoft Bing Search isn't available on Google+, I cannot actually find shit in a useful fashion. That said, I applaud this change, thumb my nose at the fuckwits who are bitching about it, and note again the Flaw of Averages: One Size Fits None. As to the justification of not relying on Backspace for Navigation I ordinarily take exception to blame-the-user / taunt-the-user practices, and should hasten to explain my own here. Learning a New Backward Navigation Method is a Temporary Training Inconvenience. Repeatedly losing Vast Quantities of Newly Composed Content is an Irrevocable User State Loss. Among the canons of human-computer interface design is this: Thou shalt not fuck with thine users' State. Which by definition makes those who fail to make this distinction fuckwits. Perhaps only ignorant fuckwits, a curable state, though quite possibly and regrettably stupid fuckwits, a State of Extreme Durability in my experience. The larger fault is arguably for the lack of a clear stateful separation of editing from _ browsing_ modes in Web browsers. Editing involves creating novel user state which can be easily lost through capricious client behavior, such as, to draw on a randomly selected example, fucking overloading the backspace key with the behavior of "delete my highly considered and Very Important Message to the Univers by immediately and irrevocably moving off this page. It's with some irony that I note that console-based Web browsers rarely have this problem. The w3m browser, for example, when editing a text field, dumps the user to a local full-powered editor, and in fact defaults to that one specified by the users environment ($VISUAL, $EDITOR, etc.). The result is that a "primitive" browsing tool actually has an exceptionally powerful editing environment. (At this point, the Emacs users in the room are of course laughing and pointing at me, but they in fact entirely substantiate my claim in doing so. And, my dear good friends, I've given not inconsiderable thought to actually joining you, as it seems that via Termux, a commandline environment for Android, emacs and all its capabilities are in fact available to me, and may vastly surpass the Android applications environment in capabilities. The fact that Viper is a well-established and long-standing component of the Emacs landscape means that the One True Operating System now does in fact have a useful editor.) Chrome has other utterly unredeemable failures on Android, including an utter lack of ad-blocking capabilities. But for the task of composing and editing, this is a nice touch. But it does raise one futher point: why is editing via Web tools so abysmally poor? Despite various deficiencies, the G+ app actually does favourable compared to a number of other platforms, and virtually all Web editable tools. Reddit and Ello stand out particularly. As much as I love the Reddit Enhancement Suite full-screen editor (it's a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome desktop), it's not available on Android. Meaning I've got to jump through Multiple Divers Hoops in order to compose long-form content on Reddit. Android's various content-creation deficiencies make this a tedious process. This accounts for some of my Diminished Output in recent months. In particular, Firefox/Android has proven Exceptionally Capable at Losing My Shit, at least in memory not exceptionally distant (considering I've owned my present Samsung[tm] Infernal Device[r] only since October last), a characteristic which makes me Exceptionally Leery of Embarking on Enterprises of Extensive Prose Composition within that context. Given the, shall we say, exceptional advancement of text-composition in other contexts, I find this particular failure mode of the Browser Development Community in General most unpardonable. </rant_off>
• greggman 10y ago
  Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!! I can't tell you how many times I've lost data because of backspace! Good riddance. Now, please also get rid of pull down to refresh in iOS Chrome because that has also lost me data a ton of times as well. I don't even know who uses that feature. I don't need to refresh most pages and if I do there are better ways.
• slavik81 10y ago
  My first instinct was to bemoan it's loss, but after thinking about it, I make this mistake far too often. I actually just lost a draft of an annual self-assessment to this. I wanted to delete some text, but I guess I didn't have focus in the text box, and hit back. The form was created by an awful website (PeopleSoft/Oracle), so hitting forward didn't bring my data back. Sure, it was just 20 minutes of work. Sure, a better website would have had the fields autosaved, or at least not have broken the browser autofill. Sure, I could have written it in a different program and then pasted into a browser. But seriously, that should never happen. Not like that.
• optimuspaul 10y ago
  finally, now maybe I can go back to Chrome.
• whoisthemachine 10y ago
  Positive change in my book. This key was always overloaded, leading to unintentional usages. Using backspace as a "navigate back in history" shortcut never worked reliable for me in any of the browsers I've used extensively (Chrome, FF, and IE).
• hosh 10y ago
  The very first comment says: "How is someone who grew up in terminal times expected to navigate back when using a two-button mouse?" I grew up in terminal times. I was lucky that, while growing up, I had access to my father's Unix account through the university. Not only that, I do all of my development work on the terminal (via tmux, vim, and spacemacs). I like the terminal. I love keyboard shortcuts. Keeping my hands in the home row -- awesome! The backspace in the browser has always struck me as misfeature. I've lost data when typing in forms. In contrast, when I browse a page, I rarely hit the back button. I'm more likely to open a link in a new page when I am doing serious research. Times move on. Some things are lost, and our civilization is not for the better. This is not one of those cases.
• tehchromic 10y ago
  Hip hip hooray!!!
• Pharylon 10y ago
  I guess I can uninstall Backstop now (a Chrome extension that literally exists only to disable backspace to go back). I've been running it for years now. For you 1% of people that actually use the Backspace key for going back, I'm sure someone will come up with an extension to re-enable it, don't worry.
• logicallee 10y ago
  I'm a bit late to the party (already 408 comments) but, guys, here is an example of what happens currently in many browsers: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CURRENT DEFAULT "BACKSPACE" BEHAVIOR IN MANY BROWSERS: https://imgur.com/V5FHZOH https://imgur.com/V5FHZOH (this example is not prescriptive, it's just what happens) At any rate, the GIF shows the current situation. You should watch it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MY COMMENTS: I actually wrote to this app creator that they should throw up a confirmation window ( like these https://www.google.com/search?q=confirm+navigation&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=confirm+navigation&tbm=isch ) but the fact is that the browser is the one that decided to navigate away. Now what's very interesting, is that even in this, HN's, thread we have people saying "Yes!!!" and people saying "No!!!" to the change. So people who simply have never used backspace for navigation, like me, have many times accidentally touched backspace or thought we were focused on a form, and ended up losing data (because the page didn't throw up a confirmation window after navigating back, and after clicking forward the page is blank again.) While other people, who have no convenient single key they can use to navigate back, have come to rely on it. I'm not sure what the solution is, but here's the current situation so everyone understands it.
• djrconcepts 10y ago
  Great News! I have never intentionally hit backspace to go back, and yet I've hit backspace on accident and been taken many times. Quite annoying when it happens.
• jdelaney 10y ago
  I wrote a quick Chrome extension to fix this for those interested. Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/back-to-backspace/cldokedgmomhbifmiiogjjkgffhcbaec https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/back-to-backspace/... Source: https://github.com/j-delaney/back-to-backspace https://github.com/j-delaney/back-to-backspace
• copperheart 10y ago
  Big thanks to the Chrome devs for this, I applaud and personally appreciate the decision but wonder why a navigation shortcut like this couldn't be made into an option for others to enable or disable based on their preference?
  • PunchTornado 10y ago
    so make it disabled by default, but keep it as an option for some users to enable it. how many users will go to enable it? very few. you shouldn't pollute the settings page with rarely used customisations.
• math0ne 10y ago
  The amount of times I've accidentally navigated away from a form by hitting that damn shortcut!
• XorNot 10y ago
  I'm surprised people think this is a bad idea? I know of no one who uses backspace this way in the browser.
• mcrmonkey 10y ago
  ffs this is stupid. backspace has always been "back" in browsers and it really vexes me when some versions of firefox on some linux distro's do this. two hands have to be used to action this because the right alt key is either not mapped ( on some os'es ) or is alt-gr. backspace works well when moving quickly too - one finger from home row and bam. Rather then this be the fix they should probably look at the bug thats causing the user to go back when the form element is focused. Whats next ? take away space bar for moving through the page ? A about:config thing needs to be present for this to allow the user to switch between what they want. Sure extentions are possible to fix this too but i dont really want a 3rd party extention to re-enable whats a tried and tested keyboard shortcut. Additionally what happens if that dev's account gets hacked and the extention modded for malace ? Or if the dev pulls the thing in a way similar to the node.js module issue a month or so ago. This part is worrying though: We have UseCounters showing that 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form interaction. Where is that data being gathered from and how? Additionally what is classed as a form interaction ?
• monochromatic 10y ago
  Morons don't know how to use our web browser? Better break it!
• dghughes 10y ago
  Wouldn't it make more sense to have a pop up "Are you sure you want to navigate away?" solution instead? This is the very definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
• andrei_says_ 10y ago
  It's the most frequently used key for me when I browse. Any way to add it back? Maybe an extension?
• mdholloway 10y ago
  Thank god.
• backtoyoujim 10y ago
  I bet that eventually the "quit application" feature for Mac OS X is going to be offshored.
• SeriousM 10y ago
  "If you can fill out a formular field correctly without losing focus, you are not part of Chrome's target audience. edit: Had to type this four times due to accidently going back." Made my day.
• homero 10y ago
  Finally
• YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  We have UseCounters showing that 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form interaction. The latter are often cases where the user loses data. Years of user complaints have been enough that we think it's the right choice to change this given the degree of pain users feel by losing their data and because every platform has another keyboard combination that navigates back. We're doing this via a flag so that we can control this behavior should there be sufficient outcry. oOh dear lord, that's a horrible idea. You make a change to your software to fix a problem that is not caused _by_ your software? If a form is confusing enough that the user thinks they have focus when they don't and ends up losing data then that's an issue with the form, isn't it? Not the browser and not the button.
  • tremon 10y ago
    What makes you say that the problem is not caused by Chrome? I mean, Chrome is the user agent here, it handles both the form display and form input. However, I agree it's a poor solution. They could have chosen to track modification of form fields on the page and display a confirmation dialog when backspace is pressed.
• YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  We have UseCounters showing that 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form interaction. That's from the linked issue, the one that actually made the change. So, um. What is "UseCounters"? Does this mean that when you're entering text in a form Chrome is registering your keypresses?
• MrBra 10y ago
  Is there a setting to re-enable it?
• samuellb 10y ago
  I welcome this change, because I've lost a lot of form data with the backspace key. Not specifically in Chrome, because I remember having the same problem with IE 6 at the time when Firefox was still in alpha and was called "Phoenix". Now I wish that the Thunderbird developers also remove or change their single letter shortcuts that are easy to mis-type. E.g. "A" for archive, which creates an undeletable "Archive" folder in your mail account. There's a bugzilla issue for it here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615957 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615957
• chrisdotcollins 10y ago
  Thank you so much for this. Accidental backspaces have been s o frustrating to me at times. I'm glad sharing my telemetry was able to assist you in seeing these problems. I am looking forward to this update.
• chrisdotcollins 10y ago
  Thank you so much for this. I have had this happen to me by accident so many times. I'm glad the sharing of telemetry pays off in features sometimes. Looking forward to this update.
• hnal943 10y ago
  This is one of the reasons I first moved away from internet explorer - this seems to happen constantly on that browser. I've never had a problem on Chrome or Netscape/FF, but I'm generally supportive of getting rid of this concept.