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Another site that breaks the browser's back navigation. Why do so many sites do this? Do they imagine they retain user attention for longer if they break naviga

Another site that breaks the browser's back navigation. Why do so many sites do this? Do they imagine they retain user attention for longer if they break navigation? It's pretty trivial to long-press the back button or just close the tab and not come back again to your site...

amelius 7y ago
This was done to impede automatic HTML text extraction :)
- hippish 7y ago
  I'm curious, how would fiddling with navigation impede text extraction? The site renders perfectly fine without javascript, and the markup looks straight forward enough
bil7 7y ago
I don't seem to have that issue
maest 7y ago
Hi, author here. We've taken no intentional action to change the way the back button works - in fact, I too hate it when websites do that. Can you PM me with some details about what you're seeing? I'm having issues reporducing it with my particular setup.
- Santosh83 7y ago
  Good to know! I don't believe PM is possible on hacker news so I hope you don't mind that I describe some details right here? My browser is the latest (v73.0.1) Firefox on the latest build of Windows10. I confirmed the issue with all addons disbled so it is not an addon issue. I think I know what may be responsbile. When initially I load the page the back button works as intended for about a second. After that delay the page seems to load some resources from static.parastorage.com and www.mymobileapp.online. Once those resources are finished loading the back button does not navigate back to the HN article on the first press. Have to press once more. So I presume a script from one of those domains is responsible. Hope this helps!
LorenPechtel 7y ago
Broken back buttons are often due to a site where a placeholder loads and it turns around and loads the real thing. Back takes you to the placeholder which promptly takes you back where you were. There are sites that explicitly mess with the back button but I haven't seen one in ages.

amelius 7y ago

This was done to impede automatic HTML text extraction :)

hippish 7y ago
I'm curious, how would fiddling with navigation impede text extraction? The site renders perfectly fine without javascript, and the markup looks straight forward enough

bil7 7y ago

I don't seem to have that issue

maest 7y ago

Hi, author here. We've taken no intentional action to change the way the back button works - in fact, I too hate it when websites do that. Can you PM me with some details about what you're seeing? I'm having issues reporducing it with my particular setup.

Santosh83 7y ago
Good to know! I don't believe PM is possible on hacker news so I hope you don't mind that I describe some details right here? My browser is the latest (v73.0.1) Firefox on the latest build of Windows10. I confirmed the issue with all addons disbled so it is not an addon issue. I think I know what may be responsbile. When initially I load the page the back button works as intended for about a second. After that delay the page seems to load some resources from static.parastorage.com and www.mymobileapp.online. Once those resources are finished loading the back button does not navigate back to the HN article on the first press. Have to press once more. So I presume a script from one of those domains is responsible. Hope this helps!

LorenPechtel 7y ago

Broken back buttons are often due to a site where a placeholder loads and it turns around and loads the real thing. Back takes you to the placeholder which promptly takes you back where you were. There are sites that explicitly mess with the back button but I haven't seen one in ages.