Backspace in some browsers goes to the previous page because that used to be the standard. Nowadays we enter a lot of data in a web page and having to explain

Backspace in some browsers goes to the previous page because that used to be the standard. Nowadays we enter a lot of data in a web page and having to explain to an end user that the browser works differently depending on where the cursor is might be confusing for them. A decade ago most people just used the internet for consuming the page (browsing), sometimes entering a few lines of data. Having the back button go back in your navigation makes sense in that respect as you are "browsing", not creating. Re: "it's totally destructive", actually it is not destructive, you can hit backspace in the middle of your edits, go to the previous page, then go to the forward arrow in your browser and voila.. the text you entered is still there! Of course that isn't true on every website as quite often the site developer is trying to do "smart" things. It is however a standard html feature and I just did that here while typing my text and it works fine on hacker news. Personally I like the back button in my browser to go back in my browsing history, as mentioned by others, this is configurable in firefox.