
Random Chrome news trivia - dredmorbius
https://plus.google.com/+PeterKasting/posts/eh7QwRZdD6x
======
dredmorbius
Since the title obscures the meat of the post:

 _I know our announcement about an extension to restore "backspace goes back"
functionality to Chrome said the words "we heard you", but it's not actually
true that (as Techspot wrote) we made a decision to totally gut the feature
and then were "forced...to reevaluate". We wanted to release such an extension
from the beginning, it just took a while to get shipped, for various reasons._

That is:

1\. The Google Chrome browser, some time back, overrode the default behavior
of the backspace key from "delete previous character" to "navigate back in
history".

2\. This despite numerous other UI elements for doing so (back arrow, ctrl-B,
cmd-B, etc. on various platforms).

3\. This despite the inevitable _user state loss_ which occurs whilst, when
editing a document, a user is so callous and naive as to expect to be able to
delete some text.

4\. Rather than admit the move was idiotic in the first place and fix _the
normal and expected behavior of the backspace key by default_ , Chrome have
taken the _other_ option...

5\. Managing the behavior of the backspace key is done _through an extension_
(rather than, apparently, cluttering the Chrome UI with useless controls and
settings). Oh, and ...

6\. The default behavior of the backspace key _remains_ the user-state-
destroying, nonintuitive, back-navigation behavior.

Kasting, and Chrome, and Google _should_ have admitted their sheer idiocy in
making this configuration in the first place.

They've instead done the world a clear favour by loudly and clearly signalling
that Chrome is in fact _not_ a sensible tool to be used in any circumstances,
nor does it have competent leadership.

In researching this rant and looking for information on Kasting's precise
position within the Chrome development team (far too high, and _extremely_
more public than behooves either him, Chrome, or Google), I was amused to find
he's inspired his own Change.org petition, a fact of which I'd been previously
utterly unaware:

[https://www.change.org/p/lawrence-page-replace-peter-
kasting...](https://www.change.org/p/lawrence-page-replace-peter-kasting-and-
the-google-chrome-ui-team)

A Gizmodo article from 2015 names him as "Senior Software Engineer on the
Chrome team":

[http://gizmodo.com/googles-masterplan-to-make-chrome-suck-
le...](http://gizmodo.com/googles-masterplan-to-make-chrome-suck-
less-1711313748)

~~~
Nadya
_> The Google Chrome browser, some time back, overrode the default behavior of
the backspace key from "delete previous character" to "navigate back in
history"._

I do not remember that ever being the default behavior. If anything "backspace
navigating back in history" has been the default of all browsers. IE does it,
FF does it, Chrome did it.

(2) is meaningless. There are countless redundant UI/hotkeys for things across
software. For example, closing tabs has a UI option (click x on the tab), a
hotkey option (ctrl+w), and a context menu (right click->close tab) option.

(3) is exactly why they are making this change. People who accidentally click
outside of a field and press backspace. Remember that this is default behavior
in all browsers. One that Google has decided is _bad_ default behavior.

(4) I don't remember there ever being such a move, but feel free to prove me
wrong. This has been the default behavior since I was a child. Backspace only
ever deleted text if the active field was an input or textarea field.

(5) There isn't too much of an issue with this:
[https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-
change-t...](https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-change-their-
settings/)

(6) _No it isn 't._ The new keybinding is alt+left arrow unless you install
the extension.

FWIW, I'm part of the 0.04% that use backspace to navigate back in history.
I'm one of the few that give a shit about this change and rather dislike it -
but disliking it doesn't mean it is okay to be spreading misinformation.

