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Ok, you can start with LinkedIn, I'll wait... If you are wondering how it works. You get a link from LinkedIn, it's from an email or just a post someone shared
by firefoxd 6mo ago
Ok, you can start with LinkedIn, I'll wait...
If you are wondering how it works. You get a link from LinkedIn, it's from an email or just a post someone shared. You click on it, the URL loads, and you read the post. When you click the back button, you aren't taken back to wherever you came from. Instead, your LinkedIn feed loads.
How did it happen? When you landed on the first link, the URL is replaced with the homepage first (location.replace(...) doesn't change the browser history). Then the browser history state is pushed to the original link. So it seems like you landed on the home page first then you clicked on a link. When you click the back button, you are taken back to the homepage where your feed entices you to stay longer on LinkedIn.
- giorgioz 6mo agoAlso www.reddit.com is/was doing the same back button hijacking. From google.com visiting a post, then clicking back and you would find yourself on Reddit general feed instead of back to Google.
- cli 6mo agoI do not see this behaviour on the latest version of Firefox. I do use old.reddit, however.
- myrion 6mo agoI don't use old Reddit, and haven't noticed this behaviour either.
- moritzwarhier 6mo agoSounds like maybe some prevention against this is already implemented in either particular Android browsers, or ad blockers, maybe even for specific sites? Just speculating, I can't imagine a reason why they'd implement this especially for Safari. Other than A/B-testing or trash code that coincidentally doesn't work in all mobile browsers. Maybe they use the same AI that generates their fictious relationship stories to add these dark patterns to their code base :D
- fluidcruft 6mo agoMy understanding is that Apple keeps Safari fairly broken and doesn't care to implement the Googleverse and leaves a lot of things E_WONTFIX. I have read speculation that broken Safari encourages apps in the App Store.
- moritzwarhier 6mo agohm yeah but the History API is not new or exclusive to Google, also my understanding was that the discussion is about the annoyance "working" on iOS Safari, but not on other platforms. Any way, too many variables here.
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoOld Reddit doesn't do this, it's the "new" one that pretends to be an app, that does it and host of other stupid/user-hostile shit.
- J_Shelby_J 6mo agoIn any case, Reddit lets open links in a new tab in their settings, which resolved the issue for me.
- DaiPlusPlus 6mo agoI'm pretty sure what you're describing is this long-standing bug[1] I've experienced only when using Mobile Safari on Reddit - affecting both old.reddit.com and the (horrible) modern Reddit. It just doesn't happen in other browsers/engines except on iOS. It's especially annoying on an iPad when I tend to use back/forward instead of open-in-new-tab-then-close on iPhone. [1] At least, I hope it's a bug.
- _cadp 6mo agoA bug that just coincidentally affects the only reddit visitors that are worth any money?
- embedding-shape 6mo agoJust like finally getting rid of r/all on mobile just happens to bury a bunch of political stuff reddit executives and their friends don't agree with
- 100721 6mo agoHuh? I exclusively view r/all and its loading fine for me across all devices.
- Ohmec 6mo agoYou probably use old.reddit and a legacy app, right?
- embedding-shape 6mo agoEven manually typing reddit.com/r/all (or r/All, which was a workaround for a while) in the address bar on iOS Safari redirects you to reddit.com/. Since I'm guessing you're not browsing reddit.com, what client are you using?
- CDRdude 6mo agoThis is available for me on iOS https://old.reddit.com/r/all/ https://old.reddit.com/r/all/
- Bombthecat 6mo agoNews sites are doing it too. Displaying a full display ad when you try to leave
- jeffbee 6mo agoI would just like to point out that this was one of the things that the AMP straightjacket prevented. The whole online news industry has conclusively demonstrated that it can't be trusted with javascript and must be hospitalized, but they refuse to acknowledge their own illness.
- kevin_thibedeau 6mo agoAMP sites listed on Android Assistant routinely messed with back button behavior to trap you.
- kube-system 6mo agoIs it news sites fault or is it the fault of web standards/browser developers for failing to build any viable mechanisms for monetizing content? The issue is hardly isolated to news outlets. It's endemic to the web.
- LorenPechtel 6mo agoYeah, and I think it's pretty much impossible to solve. Look what happened with Netflix. They actually got it right, a reasonable price for a bunch of stuff which would end up appropriated based on demand (they needed to have the disk to rent.) And how you have a bunch of players trying to compete in the space, each with it's exclusive content to try to make you choose them. And look what's happened with Google's "news". It's more and more and more clickbait. I used to think the answer was a small charge per article, run through some aggregator that tracked payment. But these days we see things designed to get you to open the page, not to actually provide value. Or look at the problems Amazon has had with it's Kindle Unlimited stuff--books designed to game the metrics, groups engaging in read each other's books behavior etc.
- 6mo ago
- ChocolateGod 6mo agoI usually find the back button just doesn't work on new Reddit at all.
- hobofan 6mo agoIIRC Reddit is also doing the same thing on their mobile (Android) app.
- SilasX 6mo agoEven on old.reddit, it breaks the back button. When you navigate back, it usually reloads the entire page you were on and ignores all your collapse actions on conversations.
- zozbot234 6mo agoThe fix is to hold down the back button so the local history shows up, and pick the right page to go back to. Unfortunately, some versions of Chrome and/or Android seem to break this but that's a completely self-inflicted problem.
- Rygian 6mo agoThat's not a fix. It's a workaround.
- zozbot234 6mo agoIt's a fix because it completely solves the issue on any site, without requiring changes from LinkedIn or any other actor.
- marak830 6mo agoIt's a work around to them making changes to deliberately change the expected results of pressing "back"
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoIt's also not a very effective workaround, because some of the websites in question end up spamming multiple instances of their home page in the history stack.
- zozbot234 6mo agoYou can usually address this by going back as far as possible, then holding the button again so more of the history shows up. And IME, it's only really broken sites that have this problem in the first place.
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoYes, but that's super annoying and at that point graduates to being a shitty workaround.
- miki123211 6mo agoThe problem is, there are two conceptions of the back button, and the browser only implements one. One conception is "take me back to the previous screen I was on", one is "take me one level up the hierarchy." They're often but not always the same. Mac Finder is a perfect example of a program correctly implementing the two. If you're deep in some folder and then press cmd+win+l to go to ~/Downloads, cmd+up will get you to ~/, but cmd+[ will get you back to where you were before, even if this was deep in some network drive, nowhere near ~. I feel like mobile OSes lean towards "one level up" as the default behavior, while traditional desktop OSes lean more towards tracking your exact path and letting you go back.
- Arainach 6mo ago> The problem is, there are two conceptions of the back button, and the browser only implements one. In web browsers, there is only one concept. There is no concept of "up one level in the heirarchy". If you want that make your own button in your website.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- blooalien 6mo ago> There is no concept of "up one level in the heirarchy". If you want that make your own button in your website. https://lifehacker.com/how-to-move-up-one-url-level-in-chrome-and-firefox-5782898 https://lifehacker.com/how-to-move-up-one-url-level-in-chrom... *shrug*
- hrimfaxi 6mo ago> Chrome/Firefox: Ever been reading a site and wish not to go back to the last page you visited, but the last page in that web site's hierarchy? This statement makes no sense to non-tech people. Most people don't think of sites hierarchically, at least not from a url path perspective.
- sznio 6mo ago
- dspillett 6mo ago> You get a link from LinkedIn [or such]. You click on it, the URL loads, and you read the post. When you click the back button, you aren't taken back to wherever you came from. Instead, […] I've taken to opening anything in a new tab. Closing the tab is my new back button. In an idea world I shouldn't have to, of course, but we live in a world full of disks implementing dark patterns so not an ideal one. Opening in a new tab also helps me apply a “do I really care enough to give this reading time?” filter as my browsers are set to not give new tabs focus - if I've not actually looked at that tab after a little time it gets closed without me giving it any attention at all. Specifically regarding LinkedIn and their family of dark patterns, I possibly should log in and update my status after the recent buy-out. I've not been there since updating my profile after the last change of corporate overlords ~9 years ago. Or I might just log in and close my profile entirely…
- bertil 6mo agoI do that everywhere, but it seems to fail for LinkedIn: they don’t redirect the link if it’s not in the same tab.
- dspillett 6mo agoBad design on their part, another reason not to revisit! If a site breaks my workflow I generally stop using the site, rather than changing my workflow. Though I'm guessing it would work in the cases being discussed in this article & thread: when you are navigating into a site (such as linkedin) from another, rather than following internal links.
- troupo 6mo ago> Closing the tab is my new back button. In Safari if you open a new tab, don't navigate anywhere, and click back, the tab closes and takes you back to the originating page. I've gottent so used to it, I now miss it in any other browser
- znort_ 6mo ago>I've taken to opening anything in a new tab. this is the way.
- globular-toast 6mo agoLinkedIn is malware and it's frankly embarrassing that we seem to be stuck with it. It's like a mechanic being stuck with a wrench that doesn't just punch you in the face while using it, it opens your toolbox just to come out and punch you randomly.
- integralid 6mo agoWhat do you mean "stuck with it"? I just don't use LinkedIn. Do you need it for job hunting for example?
- adithyassekhar 6mo ago> Do you need it for job hunting for example? God I hope you are being funny. Why else would anyone install this crap?
- input_sh 6mo agoThe amount of times I saw a "LinkedIn profile URL" as a required field on job applications outside of LinkedIn is concerning, to say the least.
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoI think it’s kind of companies to tell you they don’t want applicants.
- Baljhin 6mo agoWhat I do is put the link to the job listing in that field. haha, suck to be in HR if you think you're getting my profile info! I've never seen any ATS that required Linkedin for login, but even having it as an option I've always thought of as weird. Then again, I have see many an ATS that include Facebook and other slop sites, so welcome to another layer of jobhunting madness.
- SunshineTheCat 6mo agoYou know what's funny, just the other day I tried to do an "export" of my data from my account. The option I chose was "profile data" because I wanted to get my whole work history/projects/etc. for a new resume. The export took several hours. When I finally downloaded it, it included my name, Email, short description, and my Email address...
- bertil 6mo ago[dead]
- jarek83 6mo agoLinkedIn won't bother - they don't rely on SEO
- Simulacra 6mo agoand then if you click the back button again it just reloads the page, trapped in a vicious loop!
- ChrisMarshallNY 6mo agoWould this actually fall afoul of their new policy, though? Assume the way that universal links work, is that the site main page is loaded, and some hash is supplied, indicating the page to navigate to from there. That's annoying, but perfectly valid, and may be necessary for sites that establish some kind of context baseline from their landing page.
- bastawhiz 6mo agoIt's not valid. You went to a page. They said "no, you're actually on the feed," and then immediately navigate you to the page you'd actually intended to visit. This is that they're doing today, and it's terrible. If I go to a URL, I'm NOT going to your homepage feed. I never wanted to go there.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 6mo agoWell, a lot of content, these days, is really data presented in a “window.” You don’t have the old HTML address, anymore. It’s like reading an eBook in a reader. You always use the reader to interpret, format, and present the data. It kind of sticks a spike into the old “each page is a document” model.
- bastawhiz 6mo agoThe experience you're describing still doesn't need to break the back button. Going back means going back, not closing a window I never opened. If that's an awkward experience, don't build one that works that way.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6mo agoFair ‘nuff, and I agree, but would they be able to argue that they never explicitly “broke” the back button? I remember when JavaScript became a big Web site driver. The arguments against using it to fetch and build content usually included broken back button functionality. I don’t think a lot of folks really paid much attention to it, though.
- abustamam 6mo agoFacebook does this as well. Thanks for explaining how they do it BTW! I didn't really think about it. I just knew it was shitty.
- 01284a7e 6mo agoCan we reach out directly to Reid Hoffman? Or is he too wrapped up doing damage control from being all over the Epstein Files?
- venusenvy47 6mo agoRegarding Google and LinkedIn, I keep complaining to them about a stupid feature of Gmail. If I get an invitation from someone, Gmail puts "accept" as a button in the subject of the email - so if you aren't careful you can accept while you are scrolling through the subject lines. That is just the worst feature to put in their subject line.
- Barbing 6mo agoDoes "accept" support "undo send"?
- venusenvy47 6mo agoI don't think so. At least not from the inbox, where it happens. I'm not in the message - I'm just dragging on the subject lines to scroll, and these "hotspots" light up on the right portion of the subject.
- venusenvy47 6mo agoActually, it looks like they fixed this problem. I just checked all the messages with the LinkedIn label and I don't see it popping that "hotspot" anymore. The only thing that pops up in the subject line is now "Unsubscribe", so that is really good.
- Barbing 6mo agoWow they’re fast! :)
- Barbing 6mo agoI like Gmail asking me for no reason to stay on the page when I try to leave. New spam policy for navigate-away blocking, hope that's Google's next article.