4 ms·

Reddit has disabled copy/paste on right click

48 points by viridian 3y ago

...completely breaking accessibility for people who primarily, or solely use a mouse. As of about a day ago they decided to hijack the right click to take focus away from whatever you selected, possibly to support this new "Embed" feature that overlays a button that opens a new tab, any time you select new text. I wonder what the hell the end goal is for them? I can't imagine this could have any sort of positive business outcome associated with it.

rice7th 3y ago
Reddit seems to be trying really hard to destroy themselves these days
- mhuffman 3y ago
  I think they are banking on size. Like some companies have so many customers and there isn't a readily available alternative that it really doesn't matter how they abuse their customers. They will be turbo-fucked if an alternative pops up, but until then, they can do what they want with minor ablative loss.
throwaway12245 3y ago
Copy still works on old.reddit.
- theossuary 3y ago
  I bet old.reddit doesn't last 3 more months at the rate things are going.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    That would be it for me, I find the new format long on noise and short on signal.
  - viernullvier 3y ago
    I heard from a mod of a large sub that old.reddit is not going anywhere - apparently all of the admin tools are built on old.reddit, so shutting it down would not be feasible without a huge engineering effort.
    - roflyear 3y ago
      Make it available to mods-only. That isn't hard.
      - viernullvier 3y ago
        Please don't give them ideas. OTOH, I've already stopped posting and commenting and will only resume once they change their stance on moderation tools and third-party access. If old.reddit goes for good, I'll go as well.
        roflyear 3y ago
        I realized they are making it worse and worse to use for mobile, like the browser version barely works anymore on mobile, and sometimes forces you to go to the app :(
- codegeek 3y ago
  Not sure if it's just me but old.reddit is no longer mobile responsive for me.
  - nbhusal 3y ago
    Was it ever?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sp332 3y ago
Even setting the usual Firefox pref (dom.event.contextmenu.enabled = false) doesn't fix this. I had to install Absolute Enable Right Click https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/absolute-enable-right-click/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/absolute-enab... and configure it to "absolute" mode to get a normal menu.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Still works fine for me, even on new reddit.
- andyo 3y ago
  It's on new new reddit, the one that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/fp8iUGj.png https://i.imgur.com/fp8iUGj.png If you select text, an "embed" button comes up and if you right click on the selection, it and the highlight just disappear and the generic context menu comes up (not the text one where there is "copy", "select all", etc.). This UI only shows up for me when logged out but they said it'd roll out eventually: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/11zso11/an_improved_web_experience/ https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/11zso11/an_improved...
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    Wow that's shocking. What are they thinking over there? Thanks for the follow-up, at least I know to look out for this abomination.
  - sp332 3y ago
    You can get this at new.reddit.com if you want to skip ahead.
throwawaymobule 3y ago
does right clicking a second time, or holding shift and right clicking work? I've always relied on this behaviour in firefox when sites try to be too clever for their own good. I think ctrl+right click is the chrome equivilant.
- sp332 3y ago
  It looks like it de-selects the text when the menu comes up. So there’s nothing left to right-click a second time.
JauntTrooper 3y ago
This has been driving me crazy, I thought I had accidentally broken something on my end. Why would they do this?
shortrounddev2 3y ago
I'm not sure what you mean. It works for me edit: oh, when I do it in incognito (not logged in) I see the new UI. I guess I haven't logged out of reddit in a while
koverda 3y ago
there's also no mention of this at all on reddit.

48 points by viridian 3y ago

rice7th 3y ago

Reddit seems to be trying really hard to destroy themselves these days

mhuffman 3y ago
I think they are banking on size. Like some companies have so many customers and there isn't a readily available alternative that it really doesn't matter how they abuse their customers. They will be turbo-fucked if an alternative pops up, but until then, they can do what they want with minor ablative loss.

throwaway12245 3y ago

Copy still works on old.reddit.

theossuary 3y ago
I bet old.reddit doesn't last 3 more months at the rate things are going.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  That would be it for me, I find the new format long on noise and short on signal.
- viernullvier 3y ago
  I heard from a mod of a large sub that old.reddit is not going anywhere - apparently all of the admin tools are built on old.reddit, so shutting it down would not be feasible without a huge engineering effort.
  - roflyear 3y ago
    Make it available to mods-only. That isn't hard.
    - viernullvier 3y ago
      Please don't give them ideas. OTOH, I've already stopped posting and commenting and will only resume once they change their stance on moderation tools and third-party access. If old.reddit goes for good, I'll go as well.
      - roflyear 3y ago
        I realized they are making it worse and worse to use for mobile, like the browser version barely works anymore on mobile, and sometimes forces you to go to the app :(
codegeek 3y ago
Not sure if it's just me but old.reddit is no longer mobile responsive for me.
- nbhusal 3y ago
  Was it ever?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sp332 3y ago

Even setting the usual Firefox pref (dom.event.contextmenu.enabled = false) doesn't fix this. I had to install Absolute Enable Right Click https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/absolute-enable-right-click/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/absolute-enab... and configure it to "absolute" mode to get a normal menu.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Still works fine for me, even on new reddit.

andyo 3y ago
It's on new new reddit, the one that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/fp8iUGj.png https://i.imgur.com/fp8iUGj.png If you select text, an "embed" button comes up and if you right click on the selection, it and the highlight just disappear and the generic context menu comes up (not the text one where there is "copy", "select all", etc.). This UI only shows up for me when logged out but they said it'd roll out eventually: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/11zso11/an_improved_web_experience/ https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/11zso11/an_improved...
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Wow that's shocking. What are they thinking over there? Thanks for the follow-up, at least I know to look out for this abomination.
- sp332 3y ago
  You can get this at new.reddit.com if you want to skip ahead.

throwawaymobule 3y ago

does right clicking a second time, or holding shift and right clicking work? I've always relied on this behaviour in firefox when sites try to be too clever for their own good. I think ctrl+right click is the chrome equivilant.

sp332 3y ago
It looks like it de-selects the text when the menu comes up. So there’s nothing left to right-click a second time.

JauntTrooper 3y ago

This has been driving me crazy, I thought I had accidentally broken something on my end. Why would they do this?

shortrounddev2 3y ago

I'm not sure what you mean. It works for me edit: oh, when I do it in incognito (not logged in) I see the new UI. I guess I haven't logged out of reddit in a while

koverda 3y ago

there's also no mention of this at all on reddit.