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Firefox to block Backspace key from working as “Back” button
- SpikeDad 6y agoUgh. I use this behavior for my air mouse so I can assign "Go Back" to one of the buttons. Well reading to the end fortunately Firefox will have a configuration to restore this behavior. Nevermind.
- duskwuff 6y agoSurely you can assign the button to send Alt+Left? That'd probably make it work in a lot of other applications, too.
- 72deluxe 6y agoAnnoyingly, on the Mac cmd-left is the shortcut for "back" in all the browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Safari) but if you happen to have a text box with focus (even the address bar!!), it's the system accelerator/shortcut for "go to the beginning of the line"...
- peanut_worm 6y agoAs long as there’s an option to change it back seems good to me, i’ve used that feature unintentionally more often than intentionally
- swills 6y agoAnd like so many things that have been changed but could be changed back with a config option, eventually there will be the inevitable "Well, this has been off by default for X years, keeping the option to turn it back on is a maintenance burden, let's just remove it" phase.
- MiddleEndian 6y agoThis is an inaccurate title. Firefox is not "blocking" the backspace key from working as Back. They're just swapping the default, which is already the default in Linux. From the article itself: >Set the browser.backspace_action to 0 in the about:config settings panel to re-enable support for the Backspace key as a Back button.
- eikenberry 6y ago> which is already the default in Linux. Thanks for saving me the time to look this up. I was confused for a bit there as I'd never heard of this behavior before.
- tinus_hn 6y agoStep 1: make it a setting Step 2: change the default Step 3: remove the setting
- silicon2401 6y agoSurprisingly uplifting news. I can't believe in 2021 this was still default behavior. I immediately had flashbacks to all the times I accidentally lost progress in something due to hitting the backspace button, then went through the process of changing the behavior myself.
- Narishma 6y agoI've used this feature for decades and have never had any issues with lost progress. In fact, it's the reason I switched to Firefox in the first place, after Chrome removed it. I really don't understand people's trouble with it.
- happytoexplain 6y agoThis tone is so irksome to me. It's the "works on my machine" fallacy, but with UX. If people experience a bug or UX problem, it really doesn't matter if it's the "fault" of the software or those users.
- Narishma 6y agoIt matters if it causes a feature you depend on to be removed for dubious reasons.
- caseyavila 6y agoWell luckily for you, and I am sure others, Firefox will allow you to re-enable this in your browser once version 86 rolls out. As cited from the article: Set the browser.backspace_action to 0 in the about:config settings panel to re-enable support for the Backspace key as a Back button.
- silicon2401 6y agoIt's not being removed, the default is being changed. You can still change it, just as you have been able to for some time. I support your ability to use this feature, and I also enjoy firefox because of its customization support, but I think it's reasonable to change the default to match what most people would expect.
- lol768 6y agoHappy that this remains configurable. It's not hard to check whether you have the input area focused before hitting it, so the accidental mis-presses I've experienced are pretty minimal.
- happytoexplain 6y agoIt's a little crazy to me that having to check that an input field is focused before backspacing is even in the ballpark of acceptable UX.
- marczellm 6y agoThe editorialized title could be "Firefox removes most used keyboard shortcut". See the bugzilla comments :)
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago> The “Backspace” keyboard shortcut on Firefox is by far the keyboard shortcut with highest usage with 40M MAU, well above “Find in page” (16M MAU) or “Page reload” (15M MAU), causing concerns that our users suffer useability issues and data loss issues from hitting this keyboard shortcut by mistake
- Narishma 6y agoWhat makes them think it's used by mistake? These stats certainly don't say anything about that.
- esrauch 6y agoDo you genuinely there's several times more MAUs deliberately using "backspace for back" than literally any other keyboard shortcut? It seems obviously implausible to me.
- seppel 6y agoI'd assume that there is a class of users who never ever use any keyboard short deliberately (because they are not aware or dont care about their existence). Any keyboard shortcut they trigger is pretty much by accident. I have not data how common that is, but I know such users.
- esrauch 6y agoThat seems to just be majority of users based on that stats listed above, and that backspace is the only one that is trivial to hit when trying to do something else.
- 6y ago
- teilo 6y agoThe first thing I turn off. It often interacts badly with many single-page we apps where a field loses focus when you remove its contents. Hit the backspace key one too many times, and you navigate back. Not all pages behave this way, but enough do that it's infuriating.
- junar 6y agoI switched to side mouse buttons a few years back, probably around the time Chrome made this change. It's been great: my hand is on the mouse much of the time. On top of that, almost all of the time I click back, I want to either scroll or move the mouse soon after. I can't believe I used to move my hand to an out-of-the-way spot on the keyboard to go back a page.
- Vanit 6y agoI have this and changing tabs bound to my mouse side buttons, I don't know how people tolerate anything else.
- issamehh 6y agoThis is the worst behavior to me. Those are precious buttons I want to bind to other uses. Too many times they've navigated me away from what I was looking at when I happened to press them with the browser focjsdd
- syntaxing 6y agoOn the topic of back buttons and Firefox, does anyone know why my Logitech mouse back button work with Chrome but not Firefox...?