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Some Microsoft sites have been very guilty of this. They are the ones that stick in my head in recent memory.

sixothree 7mo ago
Epic store makes it impossible to navigate backwards from the checkout on mobile at least. Not sure if it's design or just poor design.
- quantum_magpie 7mo ago
  I think most checkouts do that, to prevent duplicate payments. Dunno about epic, but I often encounter that mitigated by a dedicated ‘go back to store’ button post-checkout
542458 7mo ago
Are they? This seems about deceptive or malicious content (i.e., redirecting to ads) rather than “something in my history triggers a JS redirect”. I’ve definitely experienced the latter with MS, but never the former.
- surround 7mo ago
  It seems like Google's policy is unconcerned with the intent of the practice. If a website JS redirect ruins the user experience by breaking the back button, it will be demoted in search results. It doesn't matter whether or not the redirect was meant to be deceptive or malicious, websites shouldn't be ruining the user experience.
  - dataflow 7mo ago
    > It seems like Google's policy is unconcerned with the intent of the practice. I'm reading the opposite: "If you're currently using any script or technique that inserts or replaces deceptive or manipulative pages into a user's browser history that [...]"
  - j16sdiz 7mo ago
    This is Google. Most likely they will deploy an automatic scanner bot that "supposed to" handle all the edge cases. When it don't work, you will be blamed for not writing your js in the way the bot can understand.
lamasery 7mo ago
IIRC the Azure “portal” does this. Also likes to not record things as navigation events that really feel like they should be. Hitting back on that thing is like hitting the back button on Android, it’s the “I feel lucky” button. Anything could happen.
- PhageGenerator 7mo ago
  I think that is because some "pages" are really full screen modals. So the back button does take you back to the previous page, but it looks like you went back two pages (closes modal + goes back). I don't spend too much time in the Azure portal but this behavior is rampant in the Entra admin center.
  - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
    > full screen modals Thanks. I never imagined this is a thing, it's an useful addition to my mental model of software components, to explain why back button on web behaves in weird ways for some apps. But it sure does sound like a dumb pattern on the web.
    - notpushkin 7mo ago
      While we’re making sure that modals are recorded in history so that you can close them with the back button on mobile (e.g. https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/shallow-routing https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/shallow-routing), MSFT can’t be bothered. But when it comes to abusing the very same history API to grab the user’s attention for a bit longer...
- boomlinde 7mo ago
  Having used Azure I believe that this is the result of pure, distilled incompetence rather than malicious intent.
  - al_borland 7mo ago
    This maybe true, but I don’t think a company as large as Microsoft can get a pass. There is no excuse for them not being able to handle a back button properly. They are worth trillions of dollars, run some of the biggest sites on the internet, and defined much of how the web worked for an entire computing era. They should have their feet held to the fire on this.
SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago
Happened to me yesterday through a link off here. I was already expecting it given the domain, but usually mashing back fast enough does the trick eventually. Not this time. Had to kill the tab.
- Tepix 7mo ago
  In most browsers you can hold the back button for a second and it will let you skip back more than one step.
  - Kab1r 7mo ago
    And some websites consume the entire history that a browser displays in that menu
    - SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago
      Has definitely happened to me. Especially if I try the "click back a couple times quickly" method first.
  - AndrewDucker 7mo ago
    You can right-click on the back button in Firefox to see a list of previous sites to go back to.
    - notpushkin 7mo ago
      Yeah, it’s the same feature, just two different gestures. (And long tap works with Firefox on Android, btw.)
  - SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago
    Probably should have mentioned it, but I was on my phone browser where that option either doesn't exist or isn't surfaced well. A long press on the back button just does the same thing as tapping once, so I'm all out of ideas.
UntappedShelf21 7mo ago
Microsoft Learn. I first noticed this a couple years ago not long after they changed the url from docs.microsoft.com to learn.microsoft.com. Each time you went from a google search to a learn page it would load, redirect to login.microsoftonline then go back to the learn page. Hitting back in the browser took you back to login.microsoftonline which forwarded you back to the learn page. Hitting back twice in quick succession took you back to the docs page then forwarded you to login.microsoftonline. Easier to close the tab and start again. Maybe it was something to do with the changes to the site to make it more like an online college, as that portion requires signin, but I’m just after first party doco! Dunno if this still happens today but at the time I was browsing docs every other day and it was super frustrating. Note: it only did this if you were already signed in elsewhere, something triggered Microsoft sso check. Similar to if you go to portal.office.com, it is a page that requires sign in and so does the login.microsoftonline redirect to check for active tokens.

Epic store makes it impossible to navigate backwards from the checkout on mobile at least. Not sure if it's design or just poor design.

quantum_magpie 7mo ago
I think most checkouts do that, to prevent duplicate payments. Dunno about epic, but I often encounter that mitigated by a dedicated ‘go back to store’ button post-checkout

542458 7mo ago

Are they? This seems about deceptive or malicious content (i.e., redirecting to ads) rather than “something in my history triggers a JS redirect”. I’ve definitely experienced the latter with MS, but never the former.

surround 7mo ago
It seems like Google's policy is unconcerned with the intent of the practice. If a website JS redirect ruins the user experience by breaking the back button, it will be demoted in search results. It doesn't matter whether or not the redirect was meant to be deceptive or malicious, websites shouldn't be ruining the user experience.
- dataflow 7mo ago
  > It seems like Google's policy is unconcerned with the intent of the practice. I'm reading the opposite: "If you're currently using any script or technique that inserts or replaces deceptive or manipulative pages into a user's browser history that [...]"
- j16sdiz 7mo ago
  This is Google. Most likely they will deploy an automatic scanner bot that "supposed to" handle all the edge cases. When it don't work, you will be blamed for not writing your js in the way the bot can understand.

lamasery 7mo ago

IIRC the Azure “portal” does this. Also likes to not record things as navigation events that really feel like they should be. Hitting back on that thing is like hitting the back button on Android, it’s the “I feel lucky” button. Anything could happen.

PhageGenerator 7mo ago
I think that is because some "pages" are really full screen modals. So the back button does take you back to the previous page, but it looks like you went back two pages (closes modal + goes back). I don't spend too much time in the Azure portal but this behavior is rampant in the Entra admin center.
- TeMPOraL 7mo ago
  > full screen modals Thanks. I never imagined this is a thing, it's an useful addition to my mental model of software components, to explain why back button on web behaves in weird ways for some apps. But it sure does sound like a dumb pattern on the web.
  - notpushkin 7mo ago
    While we’re making sure that modals are recorded in history so that you can close them with the back button on mobile (e.g. https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/shallow-routing https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/shallow-routing), MSFT can’t be bothered. But when it comes to abusing the very same history API to grab the user’s attention for a bit longer...
boomlinde 7mo ago
Having used Azure I believe that this is the result of pure, distilled incompetence rather than malicious intent.
- al_borland 7mo ago
  This maybe true, but I don’t think a company as large as Microsoft can get a pass. There is no excuse for them not being able to handle a back button properly. They are worth trillions of dollars, run some of the biggest sites on the internet, and defined much of how the web worked for an entire computing era. They should have their feet held to the fire on this.

SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago

Happened to me yesterday through a link off here. I was already expecting it given the domain, but usually mashing back fast enough does the trick eventually. Not this time. Had to kill the tab.

Tepix 7mo ago
In most browsers you can hold the back button for a second and it will let you skip back more than one step.
- Kab1r 7mo ago
  And some websites consume the entire history that a browser displays in that menu
  - SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago
    Has definitely happened to me. Especially if I try the "click back a couple times quickly" method first.
- AndrewDucker 7mo ago
  You can right-click on the back button in Firefox to see a list of previous sites to go back to.
  - notpushkin 7mo ago
    Yeah, it’s the same feature, just two different gestures. (And long tap works with Firefox on Android, btw.)
- SuperNinKenDo 7mo ago
  Probably should have mentioned it, but I was on my phone browser where that option either doesn't exist or isn't surfaced well. A long press on the back button just does the same thing as tapping once, so I'm all out of ideas.

UntappedShelf21 7mo ago

Microsoft Learn. I first noticed this a couple years ago not long after they changed the url from docs.microsoft.com to learn.microsoft.com. Each time you went from a google search to a learn page it would load, redirect to login.microsoftonline then go back to the learn page. Hitting back in the browser took you back to login.microsoftonline which forwarded you back to the learn page. Hitting back twice in quick succession took you back to the docs page then forwarded you to login.microsoftonline. Easier to close the tab and start again. Maybe it was something to do with the changes to the site to make it more like an online college, as that portion requires signin, but I’m just after first party doco! Dunno if this still happens today but at the time I was browsing docs every other day and it was super frustrating. Note: it only did this if you were already signed in elsewhere, something triggered Microsoft sso check. Similar to if you go to portal.office.com, it is a page that requires sign in and so does the login.microsoftonline redirect to check for active tokens.