
It is time to unlink the “Backspace” – Browser Back shortcut (2012) - guiambros
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=144832
======
userbinator
Wouldn't something like an "This page contains unsubmitted form input. Are you
sure you want to leave?", with maybe a configuration option to disable it, be
far better than breaking a long-established and extremely useful keyboard
shortcut? Instead the developers chose the easy way out, to pander to users
who are apparently too stupid to notice that the focus is somewhere other than
the text field they're entering into. Why not also remove the ability for
spacebar/Enter to navigate to the currently focused link (or have they removed
that already)? If you start blindly pressing keys on a page without looking,
_it 's your own damn fault_.

In any case, this screenshot of Opera's keyboard shortcut configuration shows
just how far browser configurability has regressed:

[http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/keyboard-
se...](http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/keyboard-setup.jpg)

~~~
viraptor
> to pander to users who are apparently too stupid to notice that the focus is
> somewhere other than the text field they're entering into

I think you've just insulted a lot of people. I've run into the backspace
behaviour multiple times and never on purpose. Here's a few reasons why it can
happen, apart from stupidly mashing my keyboard, which I assure you, doesn't
happen very often:

\- touchpad not registering a click on the text field

\- element reloading due to weird js and losing focus

\- tab switching properly between the first 4 fields, but then focusing some
random button instead of the 5th input

\- broken custom JS elements which don't quite understand focus and editing

\- general keypress hijacking which doesn't do what you want

I don't look at the keyboard as I type and I don't always look at the screen
either. I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I
have to think about which possible, implicit mode I'm operating in, it's a bad
design. Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where
your cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there
multiple cursors with fake focus, etc?

~~~
userbinator
_touchpad not registering a click on the text field_

It's not hard to notice whether an element has focused, and especially if you
know you have flaky hardware, be aware of that.

All your other reasons are the fault of the website, not the browser.

 _I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I have to
think about which possible, implicit mode I 'm operating in, it's a bad
design._

You're implying that the computer somehow magically (telepathically?)
determines exactly where your input is to go. That's not possible.

 _Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where your
cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there multiple
cursors with fake focus, etc?_

In a word, yes. It's seriously _not hard_ to see where the focus is. I usually
have multiple windows open but there is only one cursor and it's the only
thing that's blinking. Many others I've seen maximise their browser window, so
there shouldn't be other cursors much less blinking ones visible (unless there
is some strange bug which does cause this --- in which case that is definitely
a bug to be fixed). If I'm at all unsure, I _make sure_.

Besides, if I'm going to submit some very long text, I'll write it all in a
real text editor first and then copy-paste.

 _I don 't always look at the screen either._

That's like saying "I don't always look at where I'm going when I drive. Why
do I keep crashing into things?"

~~~
galacticpony
You're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience, I
have to say.

I'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth
denying other users a more _forgiving_ user experience.

You're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes. What's "not that hard"
to you on whatever websites you _happen_ to use may be a significant challenge
for older people who are _forced_ to use terribly designed websites/webapps
for work or other services.

~~~
userbinator
_You 're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience,
I have to say._

The same could be said of the developers who think they're always right.

 _I 'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth
denying other users a more forgiving user experience._

Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this
shortcut.

 _You 're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes._

I'm much older than that. If anything it's the younger generation who are
driving most of these unpleasant UI changes and dumbing things down. Reflexes
have nothing to do with it. Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to
what you're doing.

 _What 's "not that hard" to you on whatever websites you happen to use may be
a significant challenge for older people who are forced to use terribly
designed websites/webapps for work or other services._

That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and making
it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training wheels".

~~~
galacticpony
_" Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this
shortcut."_

So what? There's _a lot_ of people who actually lose data due to this
"feature". Even if there was more of "your kind" (which I doubt), preventing
data loss is more important than slight convenience. _You_ can easily change a
setting or a commandline option or install an extension. A lot of other people
would need to call tech support for that, because they're afraid they'll break
their computer...

 _" Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to what you're doing."_

For someone beyond their twenties, you're certainly a wise-ass, I have to say.

 _" That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and
making it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training
wheels"_

Your suggestion _doesn 't work_. It would literally break some applications
and make others so annoying to use that the prompt would be the first thing
users disable, bringing us back to square one.

The underlying problem is _unsolvable_ for a browser vendor. All that can be
done is to _mitigate_ it by reducing accidental back-navigation. If that means
people like you are inconvenienced, so be it.

~~~
JdeBP
I commented on the different points of view of the younger and the older at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287#11739659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287#11739659)
.

------
Mithaldu
This is being wrongly treated as a binary choice of:

    
    
      1. Disable the behavior.
      2. Let it remain, do nothing else.
    

Meanwhile the actual problem is being ignored completely, which is:

    
    
      Form contents are discarded on history traversal,
      even at reasonable depth.
    

The correct solution is to do what other browsers have successfully
implemented already:

    
    
      3. Retain form contents on history traversal.
    

That way people who accidentally go back, can go forward again and keep all
their input.

~~~
galacticpony
That's not the problem. What you're talking about _already works_.

There's numerous things that can go wrong, here's two common ones:

1) The page you are going back to is a login prompt, which immediately
redirects you, overwriting your "forward" state.

2) Javascript. Everything can happen. Everything will happen. Your worst
nightmares will come true.

~~~
zzzcpan
Yes, saving input won't be possible. But generally, applications that accept
user input and cannot save it for some reason ask for confirmation to lose it,
so users won't lose it accidentally. Take a text editor for example, you can
open it and close it and it won't bother you, but if you write a few words and
try to close it, it will ask you whether you are ok losing the data. This is
what users expect nowadays. Chrome team somehow doesn't understand/recognize
that and instead of fixing the problem in a generally accepted way, tries to
rearrange the interface to have fewer accidents, breaking UIs too much in the
process and pissing off a lot of users. And that's bad.

~~~
galacticpony
_" But generally, applications that accept user input and cannot save it for
some reason ask for confirmation to lose it, so users won't lose it
accidentally."_

You'd think they do, but they _don 't_, at least not all of them. The problem
isn't the properly designed webapps, it's the _improperly_ designed ones.
That's what you somehow don't understand/recognize.

Also, the problem with the redirect happens on a certain popular bulletin
board software that works _without_ Javascript (and therefore doesn't provide
such a prompt in the first place).

~~~
zzzcpan
I was talking about desktop applications, not webapps, because web browser is
a desktop application and is expected to behave like one. Webapps don't have
to do anything.

~~~
galacticpony
I don't understand your point, then. We _are_ talking about web apps. Is
Chrome supposed to alarm you when navigating away from _any_ site with form
input? How would it know if your changes are unsaved or not? (It _can 't_)

~~~
another-dave
Chrome might not be able to, but the website can, surely? Why not leave it to
developers to properly handle state within their application (e.g. by using
history and 'beforeunload' functionality) rather than second-guessing it at a
browser level?

~~~
DonHopkins
Then the problem would ALREADY be solved, because all developers would already
be properly handling state within their application instead of second-guessing
it at a browser level. But they don't.

------
jay-anderson
I fully support this decision (though the chrome team has made some really odd
decisions -
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191)),
but why is there a general move towards software not being configurable? In
the past lots of software packages let you set the key bindings to your
heart's content. It feels like more and more software is removing this
ability. Are there architectural reasons? Is it a costly feature to maintain?

~~~
gefh
Yes, it's costly to maintain the combinatorial interactions between
configurations. But 'make it a setting' has further costs- when you're
supporting a customer and you can't figure out the exact state they're in,
when you can't make sweeping product changes because 8% of users have some
incompatible option set, when someone implements a bad feature and there's no
strong way to keep it out if you can just 'make it a setting', or when a
feature becomes obsolete but is kept around 'as a setting'. It relieves the
product team from one of their most important responsibilities.

~~~
another-dave
I know your numbers are only an example, but taken at face value — if 8% of
your users have an option set, maybe it's because you've overlooked a user-
case that's valuable to them. In that case, having a configurable app that can
feed you in this data is like free A/B testing and is a boon to a product
team, IMO.

------
ww520
Is that why the Backspace key suddenly doesn't work on Chrome anymore?
Annoying as hell. Who made this stupid decision?

Android has back key and home key that users hit accidentally all the times.
That doesn't cause much problem. Why can't the Web apps save their state to
better handle the accidental exit of the app? It's not just the backspace,
Ctrl-R and Ctrl-W all exit the app.

Don't break existing functionality!!

~~~
galacticpony
Overloading backspace with "go back" was a stupid decision. Undoing it was way
overdue.

 _" Android has back key and home key that users hit accidentally all the
times."_

The back and home buttons are not overloaded with other meaning based on
context. Android applications tend to handle accidental "back" presses
gracefully. Accidental "home" presses are usually of no consequence
whatsoever.

 _" Why can't the Web apps save their state to better handle the accidental
exit of the app?"_

Who cares? They don't and they won't.

 _" It's not just the backspace, Ctrl-R and Ctrl-W all exit the app."_

It's _way_ less likely to accidentally hit those combinations. For backspace,
it happens all the time.

 _" Don't break existing functionality!!"_

The functionality isn't broken, it's just that the few people who actually use
this shortcut will have to use another shortcut now. Big Deal.

~~~
DHowett
_The back and home buttons are not overloaded with other meaning based on
context._

Surely you jest. The back button has seen significant overhaul in the time
since it was introduced; it changed from activity-to-activity navigation along
the single "back stack" to a confusing, circuitous path walk between
applications, their "up" stacks, their "back" stacks, and everything else
under the sun. It's difficult to determine when it will take you to the
previous activity or to a page you haven't seen in the days since you last
launched the application you just ended up on.

If you're in a browser, the back hardware key takes you back -- until it
determines that you've reached a navigation root (which might not be the
earliest page in the chain), and it pops you back to the previous application
or the home screen. Perhaps it closes the tab?

If the keyboard is up, it dismisses it -- unless you're in an autocorrect
action (* on certain phones). Maybe it opens the keyboard, too, because it
took you back to a previously focused field.

It's far from "not overloaded with other meaning based on context". It is, in
fact, "entirely overloaded with other meaning; much of which is based solely
on context."

~~~
galacticpony
It may be confusing, but that confusing "back behavior" is _the one behavior
it has_ , even if it has changed over time.

It is not _overloaded_. It doesn't start deleting characters depending on
where your last tap may have (accidentally) been. Well, maybe _some_ app does
that, but I hope you get my point.

------
velox_io
As a user: I really don't understand the reasoning behind this. Backspace is
always easier to find, even on the quirkiest keyboards and useful for
navigation.

As a Dev: If the user is in danger of accidentally loosing their work then
this is a usability issue, which is easily fixed with window.onbeforeunload
prompt.

Since the back button is now 'fixed', I wonder if developers are going to see
a Javascript confirmation as a bad practice, leaving users who accidentally
close press back or close a tab with no safety net.

This seems like a fix, for something that was never broken. I wish the Chrome
team would work on giving JavaScript prompts and dialogs a much more modern
look at feel.

~~~
viraptor
> which is easily fixed with window.onbeforeunload prompt.

It would be nice, but realistically, you can't expect every single website to
get everything correct. If you could force it on people to implement a correct
onbeforeunload behaviour, backspace wouldn't be a problem. But you can't force
it, and you can't force it to be correct. (webapps are pretty complicated
these days "are there any unsaved changes" is not always a trivial question)

This way a class of errors has been removed rather than forcing everyone to
think of it in many places.

~~~
another-dave
I think it's just provided less incentive for developers to handle 'unhappy
paths' within their app — there are still plenty of ways that you'd want a
webapp to handle unexpected closure (e.g. user accidentally closing a tab,
browser crashing, network connection dropping before save takes place). If an
app is handling these states fluidly they will likely get the 'accidental
back' problem solved for free.

------
another-dave
I think the argument against feature flagging this (that this reduces app
complexity) seems a bit thin.

Normally you want to reduce the number of options in play so that you don't
need to think about all the permutations when making future changes — if you
introduce a feature in the future, you're not stuck supporting edge cases.

But the whole point of this change is that they _don 't_ want the backspace
behaviour overloaded (if it's bad UX); so it seems unlikely this would
interfere with changes down the line?

Annoying that adding the toast and creating a browser extension was probably
more work than adding the feature flag would've been.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
> Normally you want to reduce the number of options in play so that you don't
> need to think about all the permutations when making future changes

Also to reduce testing overhead when you invariably don't think of
permutations - which is now that much harder as you'll need to manually test
with the feature flag enabled, since everyone else will probably be running
with the defaults. You think all text manipulation code in and around the
backspace functionality in Chrome is static? Seems unlikely to me. Also
reduces refactoring overhead - less code, after all. To me, the question is
which will happen first:

1) They remove the toast intentionally after everyone's muscle memory has
adjusted.

2) They remove the toast accidentally by refactoring input logic and breaking
the popup functionality without noticing.

------
carapace
The "real WTF" here is that user interface should travel with the user. It
shouldn't be under someone else's control at all in the first place. It should
be platform-agnostic. Windows v. Mac v. Linux (v. Web Apps) and all their
applications should all have the same UI: what the user wants.

As a first approximation imagine a JSON doc that specifies a mapping from
standard input events to standard commands or functions; it can be extended
with application-specific, uh, specifications. It's treated as a "first-class"
entity, and respected by apps and Desktops as a matter of course.

Something like that would save all this trouble, no?

~~~
DonHopkins
In other words, just write a browser in JavaScript and HTML, on top of the
existing browser.

And then you just have all the same problems over again, only much, much
slower.

And who exactly defines "standard input events" and "standard commands" and
"standard functions"?

Those terms don't have any meaning. Such standards do not exist, and never
will. Hardware and software developers are not suddenly going to stop defining
new input events, commands and functions because some yahoo on the internet
proposed a hypothetical standard and insisted that everyone rewrite all their
programs to use it and nothing else.

~~~
carapace
Well, I think you know the particular windmill at which I tilt. You said it
yourself: we're not going to stop changing things. My problem is that it's
arrogant and rude to force the changes on the users.

------
satori99
Backspace has been the Windows Explorer shortcut for backward navigation since
Windows 95.

I use it all the time both in both Explorer and Firefox. And have never ever
accidentally deleted text when trying to navigate, or accidentally gone-back
when I'm trying to delete text.

Why is this suddenly an issue for Chrome users?

~~~
adiabatty
It's been Up since at least Windows 3.0. They might have changed it to Back
recently.

It's not suddenly an issue; I've occasionally accidentally gone back since IE
3. Between fourth mouse buttons, alt-left, and touchpad swipes, Chrome devs
are starting to think that backspace-as-back is more trouble than it's worth.

~~~
ygra
Anecdotally, I've hit my mouse's back button way more often accidentally than
I've gone back accidentally by hitting backspace. And backspace _does_ have
the benefit of being able to type it with one hand.

------
popey456963
I actually use backspace a lot. I don't know of another hotkey on the keyboard
that I can use to go back a page. If I space backspace it seems to alert me to
do Alt + Backspace, but that doesn't function either.

~~~
JdeBP
It's interesting to note that quite often in these discussions the idea that
_no other key exists_ comes up. In the 1990s, keyboard manufacturers started
adding "multimedia" and "Internet" keys to keyboards, including keys whose
sole and explicit functions were to move backwards and forwards in a WWW
browser's navigation history (or in GUI applications in general).

These keys have obviously, even in this everything-in-the-WWW-browser age,
_still_ not embedded themselves thoroughly in the public consciousness. There
are clearly sizeable classes of people who don't yet regard them as the norm;
and people who still first think of keys other than those _explicitly engraved
for the purpose_ as the ones to use for it, or do not even know that such keys
exist.

To those who are about to miss the point: Yes, _your_ current keyboard doesn't
have these keys. You didn't regard them as the norm when you bought a
keyboard/computer. They haven't become so established that you don't regard
systems without them as deficient, as you very probably _would_ regard systems
without (say) a "Super"/"Windows"/"Apple"/"Command" key. This, even in a world
where doing many if not most things in a WWW browser is seen as the norm.

~~~
touristtam
How many keys do you feel is sufficient? Already the number pad is an
extension that is adding a few keys. And a lot of laptop keyboard are using a
Fn (function) key to access additional keys.

------
korethr
I've become accustomed to using backspace as a Browser Back keyboard shortcut,
though I can sympathize with the hate for such. More than once did I intend to
go back, only to discover the cursor was presently focused in a text box, or
conversely, intend to erase a minor spelling mistake only to go back and lose
everything.

I think what I value is not so much having Backspace == Browser Back, but
simply having a keyboard shortcut for Browser Back. So certainly, by all
means, get rid of Backspace == Browser Back. But please leave a means of
configuring at least _something_ as a Browser Back keyboard shortcut.

------
xorgar831
Glad to see this fixed, overloading backspace has caused enough lost input on
websites, the binding was a short sighted mistake, there's plenty of other key
combinations that make more sense.

------
lqdc13
Alt + left arrow is way more obvious than backspace. There have been countless
times I pressed backspace inside a textbox and it went back to the previous
page, losing all the written text.

~~~
ww520
Alt + right would restore whatever you were writing. What is the problem?

~~~
stephengillie
This has saved my text so many times and I'm happy it exists.

And I'm even more confused by the official justification for removing the
backspace button functionality, as this prevents the problem they cite.

------
tshadwell
in a similar vein, I often close browsers with ^W, expecting to delete a word.
Thanks Vim.

~~~
kminehart
Wow I've been annoyingly using DE to delete a word.

Thanks for this.

~~~
andrewstuart2
FYI, this only works in insert mode, for the word you just typed (equivalent
to ctrl-backspace, basically). And diw/diW (delete inner word, delete inner
non-space-characters-word) may actually be faster depending on the context
since you don't need to get to the beginning of the word.

------
hackbinary
This backspace as the back button in web browsers never worked very well for
me, and only seemed to work when I was entering something on a webpage. It
never bothered me that it didn't work, and I never found it useful, but when
it did seem to work, it would destroy a long post. I support the removal, or
disabling by default.

------
colemickens
I've already, three times at least, been saved by the fact that I'm on Canary
builds where this is already active. Had typed into a form, the form lost
focus, I hit backspace and Chrome popped a helpful, unobtrusive box telling me
how to go back if I was trying to.

And there's already an extension that brings it back.

I hate seeing Chromium bug tracker links posted to HN or Reddit though. Just
like Microsoft GitHub Issues. They just don't need more poorly informed knee-
jerk trolls.

edit: Maybe I should clarify? I don't think that anyone is a troll for wanting
to keep existing Backspace behavior. But when these bug reports get linked to
from reddit/hn, they're invariably overrun by people making assumptions,
posting memes and berating developers. It always wind up as counter-
productive.

Also, previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287)

~~~
colejohnson66
> Downvoted for pointing out how this change has helped me, nice. You just
> stay classy as ever.

This happens on every news site. Point out something that disagrees with the
mindset of someone and back it up with facts? Downvote. I thought Hacker News
was better than this?

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Sometimes you get sympathy upvotes. Had a -3 converted +11 the other day for a
grouchy observation guaranteed to unsettle the kumbaya groupthink around here.

------
zzzcpan
'Backspace' is a widely used interface, system-wide even, and removing it
breaks UI consistency.

What they could have done is actually check whether there is a form with a
user filled text on the page somewhere, warn the user and ask to press
'backspace' again to confirm. That's it, problem solved.

~~~
panic
Where else in the system does "backspace" navigate back in history?

~~~
zzzcpan
On Ubuntu everywhere.

------
codedokode
Good decision. But there are other ways to lose text, for example hitting Ctrl
+ R instead of Ctrl + T. I am not sure if web standards allow to restore text
in this case.

~~~
colejohnson66
I haven't looked, but according to the Chrome devs, because of the way the
browser is built, saving the entire state of the DOM, JS, etc. is currently
impossible.

------
dredmorbius
I've been highly critical of Google, highly critical of their UI/UX design
generally, and highly critical of Chrome lately.

But Google and Chrome are doing the right thing here by disabling the
backspace-as-navigation overloading.

I'm rather amused to see the shrieks and screams from those having to un-learn
a keybinding. I understand the pain. Most of you will be over it in a few
weeks.

This _is_ a very strong argument for _getting UI /UX right the first time_, as
it's precisely that unlearning which is a major PITA.

There are people who seem to have difficulty understanding how anyone could
possibly hit a backspace key unintentionally, or that the fixe should lie
elsewhere (e.g., Website designes). To this:

1\. Losing user state is a Bad Thing. Composed text, lost, is a massive fail.
Setting up an application and websites for failure is a Very Bad Idea. Sure,
when the Web was created, browsers were, well, _browsers_ , not editing tools.
That's no longer the case. Hasn't been for decades.

2\. Even evil space-alien-cat geniuses fall prey to this. I've been using
computers for a few decades, occasionally get paid to manage, use, and/or
program them, and seem to have most of my wits, vision, and motor control
about me. I still get hit by this routinely.

3\. Not everyone's so lucky. I work with people suffering visual, motor
control, and mental impairment issues. Intelligent people, who manage with
their own lives. Most have been using computers themselves for decades, some
longer than I've been alive. But yeah, when your body and brain start
betraying you, it's a real bitch. Overloaded functions, particularly
destructive ones, which act in ways you didn't expect, and worse, can't
readily detect, are _really bad_.

Step outside your world for a minute.

And if you're designing interfaces, get that shit right. Because someone's
going to be cursing your name in two decades.

If you're lucky.

------
behnamoh
Just when users get used to some basic UI/UX element, some hotshot who's angry
at his/her boss comes along and ruins everything...

One specific thing about web that bothers me is lack of keyboard support for
most apps. Unplug the mouse and you can't do much else with the web (esp. if
it's flash). Backspace and Ctrl+W are the two most useful bindings I love in a
computer.

If you're going to unlink the "Backspace" because some "stupid" users
accidentally press it, then you might as well "re-design" the whole keyboard,
cause some idiot is going to press F5 by accident...

~~~
homero
That's not really accidental. Sometimes I'm pushing backspace and some stupid
JavaScript changes the focus and boom the page is gone.

~~~
touristtam
Are those JS not breaking the default behaviour then?

------
rjbwork
They rolled this out on chrome recently. Annoying as crap. At least there's a
command line option to go back with backspace now. Hopefully they don't remove
it. I may have to use another browser if they do...

~~~
bognition
Or just install the backspace extension that reenables this behavior

~~~
rjbwork
And give some random developer access to "all my data on all websites". No
thanks.

~~~
duskwuff
The author of that extension isn't "some random developer". It's provided by
Google themselves.

~~~
rjbwork
Ah, they must have pushed that out after I was trying to restore this
functionality a couple of weeks ago. Previously it was just some random that
everyone was linking to.

------
lorenzhs
I don't know when it was introduced, but the sideways scrolling history
navigation thing has caused me to lose form input several times now. I use a
trackpoint, so it's really easy to scroll sideways instead of up/down
accidentally (middle button + trackpoint). I guess that's a very niche
problem, but I've lost a lot more input that way than via backspace.

At least Chrome shows a helpful "Use Alt+Left to go back" message when mashing
the backspace key and expecting it to go back.

~~~
Shorel
I just went back when writing this comment, and then forward again.

It was not lost. This is not the old Opera, but some nice things like that are
back in the new Opera.

~~~
lorenzhs
Yeah Chrome manages just fine on HN, too, but it sometimes fails on more
complex websites.

------
revelation
As usual, they have chosen the worst possible "solution": removed the
shortcut, didn't add an option. They did miraculously have time to flash up
the two-key shortcut for back though, when they detect you pressing backspace
multiple times.

Instead of, you know, taking that opportunity to show a simple popup of "do
you want backspace to browse back?".

So now everyone has to install an extension that in the usual Chrome fashion
can "read and change all your data on websites you visit."

I think for the next kind of feature they remove this way I'll add an
extension that initially works and then have it auto-update to redirect people
from everywhere to a petition site after a random interval. Just to point out
the insanity in pouring lots of effort into security, sandboxing and even SSL
only to force people to install auto-updated untrusted extensions that can
access everything to bring back a minor keyboard shortcut. This is the exact
kind of annoyance that will see people click yes yes yes on all kinds of red
flashing security warnings.

~~~
ubernostrum
_removed the shortcut, didn 't add an option_

That's the right way.

"Never really remove anything, just wrap it in a default-off config option" is
a horrendously bad way to build software. Every configurable option is an
opportunity for bugs and an opportunity for misconfiguration.

~~~
davb
> That's the right way.

It's the lazy way.

You're right that it adds complexity. Every line of code contributes to
complexity, and increases the number of places a bug could manifest. That's
just the nature of software development.

Most software doesn't exist in a bubble of strictly-defined use cases.
Software such as web browsers target a huge (potentially the broadest) range
of users. Driving towards the lowest common denominator, as Google have been
doing with Chrome by stripping configuration options over the years, doesn't
result in a product people _love_ to use. It produces software that performs
adequately for the majority, and nothing more.

For features like "backspace to navigate back", throw them behind a flag. Make
them default-disabled. Don't even worry about putting it in Preferences - tell
power users who need it where they can find it (chrome://flags).

~~~
ubernostrum
If you want an infinitely-customizable web browser which has everything
available in a config option you're free to write one; multiple high-quality
open-source engines are available to build around.

Not every feature is good or widely-used, and removing the ones that fail,
rather than trying to keep them around but configurable, is simply the right
thing to do.

~~~
another-dave
You say "removing ones that fail", but surely that's the point here — it only
fails for users who don't know what's going on.

If I deliberately reenable backspace as 'Back in browser history', I've no
right to complain if I lose web app state; and if I get burned often, I'll
disable it again. If I use it without any problems, what's the lose on
Google's side?

~~~
random_rr
Exactly. Taking your thought a step farther... You can enable the shortcut
yourself via extensions! That way, there's no loss in Google's side. :) they
don't have to maintain an obsolete feature, and any problems are yours, not
theirs. You seem to have made their point for them.

Less code base to cover. Less tests. That's a win for the secs. And you're
free to install an extension to retrieve the behavior of you want. Sounds like
everyone wins.

~~~
another-dave
Well taking that further, you could say the same with all keyboard shortcuts &
they have nothing to test :)

Well, I'm free to install extensions on my own personal computer but not
everywhere that I use Chrome.

------
dredmorbius
From G+ discussion where Chrome devs discussed this decision in May of this
year.

The suggestion of rigging up monitoring to look for this was considered, but
the case was seen as so obvious (user-state loss vs. a week or two to adapt to
a changed shortcut) that it wasn't considered worth the effort.

See Ojan Vafai's comment(s) here:

[https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/F1dio2L9XtS](https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/F1dio2L9XtS)

 _IMO the data above is enough when coupled with anecdotal data. Given that it
didn 't seem worth investing the considerable engineering effort we would need
to gather more data. Although there was disagreement on that point. As Peter
said, this decision was only loosely based on metrics. Ultimately it was
intuition based on a combination of the data mentioned above and anecdote._

------
mapt
One of the things it might be time for is for keyboards to adapt.

Copy. Cut. Paste. Forward. Back. Undo. Redo.

Is there a better way to achieve these things than CTRL-key and backspace?
Pretty sure I use some of the above more often than "Q", to say nothing of
"Scroll lock" or "Insert".

If not: Just slap 'back' into CTRL-backspace.

~~~
lorenzhs
There are keyboard layouts that do this. I'm not particularly knowledgeable
about layouts optimized for English, but I use neo2. It's optimized for German
(primary goal) and programming and English (secondary goals). It's fourth
layer (activated with the key right of the space bar or of left shift on a
105-key keyboard) contains a lot of navigation keys and a numpad.

------
hugodahl
Reading through most of the comments, I'm led to ponder what the cross-section
of the "about time/let it go" and "use vim/emacs/sublime/$editor and configure
your own key bindings" might be. Same with the "use mouse button
x/gesture/etc".

Personally, as a heavy keyboard user, I prefer to not move my hand off the
keyboard to use the mouse if I can accomplish the same task on solely on the
keyboard. One benefit I've found is that I can "queue up" a key motion with my
left hand while going back with my right on the backspace key.

Ultimately, everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion! _g_

------
acarabott
I never, ever have the problem of clicking on the wrong link, or going to a
page I don't like. Why should I be punished by all of these incompetent people
who need to go BACK so often?

------
benguild
When they made this change in the recent Chrome update, at first I couldn't
believe it.

But, when I thought about it more, it made sense and I left it as-is without
installing an extension.

------
wodenokoto
I'm baffled with the number of people who can't see that placing delete a
character and delete everything on the same key is crazy.

------
swift
I can sympathize with the frustration of losing a convenient keyboard shortcut
like this, but I'm surprised that more people haven't switched to using
touchpad gestures to navigate back and forth. Your hand is there anyway for
scrolling; I find it very convenient. I know this doesn't really help on a
desktop machines with a mouse, though.

~~~
zzzcpan
You are right, there are different input methods, some of which are just as
convenient. I actually use a wacom tablet with a pen, so the change doesn't
bother me that much. It's just as quick for me to point and click, as it is to
press a keyboard button.

But the level of incompetence of chrome team in user interfaces continues to
amaze me.

------
Osiris
In Opera 12, and now Vivaldi, I got used to a really simple shortcut for going
back a page: home down the right mouse button then click the left button.

Unfortunately, Mac's don't have two independent mouse buttons and I really
miss that quick shortcut.

------
emilong
If you haven't run into this on a recent build of Chrome, just try hitting
backspace a couple of times and you'll get a toast telling you how to go back.
On Mac, that's ⌘+←.

~~~
stephengillie
So the key binding exists, but it doesn't perform the expected function? This
sounds trivial to correct, were the code readily available.

------
hokkos
We should have some top level key to do the back or forward actions on browser
or file navigator, this is a so common action, Alt + <\- needs 2 hands this is
not acceptable.

~~~
eropple
I'm a very happy backspace user (to the point where I wrote an extension to
bring it back), but alt+arrow (or cmd+arrow on a Mac) are one-handed on
laptops--which more and more people are using on the regular. There are
reasons not to remove it, but this isn't really one.

------
r721
Huge related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287)

------
oxplot
Chrome will show an overlay box if you press backspace a second time (seeing
it not work the first time as you expected) telling you to use Alt + <\- to go
back.

------
Thlom
Looks like backspace is already unlinked in Safari. I hadn't noticed, but
tried now and nothing happens.

~~~
kalleboo
The shortcut was invented by a Microsoft and came to browsers through IE.
Firefox only does it by default on Windows and Safari has never supported it
AFAIK

~~~
rbut
Not true. Safari used to support it and it was removed in Safari 6.

I remember when it was removed; I had been an avid user of the shortcut for
many years. It hurt at first, but after a bit of getting over the muscle
memory, I don't miss it at all now.

To everyone complaining; let it go, our browsers are better off without it.

------
boterock
I have backspace in caps lock and found very comfortable to be able to go back
with caps lock.

------
BoudewijnE
So is no one using mouse button 4 & 5 for backwards and forwards navigation? I
do.

------
Shorel
That's why I use Opera's mouse gestures to go back.

Or the mouse buttons 4 and 5.

------
cardiffspaceman
First screen savers and now this.

