On: The 'Fuck You' Pattern

[gabes]

Speaking of fuck you patterns, has anyone else been part of the A/B test where navigating to an Instagram page prevents you from using the back button? They somehow clean my tab history so that I can’t go back to Google. It’s been happening to me for months!

[fleddr → gabes]

I'm glad you mention this, thought I was the only one. I've been experiencing this on facebook.com, for years.

I'm puzzled how this is even technically possible. A website isn't supposed to be able to clear the history of where I came from?

[greenshackle2 → fleddr]

It's Firefox doing it to prevent Facebook (and Instagram) from scraping your history.

If you're not on Firefox, then I don't know.

[fleddr → greenshackle2]

That makes total sense, thanks!

[commoner → greenshackle2]

Is there an announcement, help page, or issue/commit explaining this feature?

[greenshackle2 → commoner]

There's this:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/facebookcontainer/

I'm not sure if it's built into some versions now?

It does it on my Windows computer but not my Linux laptop, and I don't remember explicitly installing this extension on either.

[gabes → greenshackle2]

Ah of course. Shows how I hold my bias toward Facebook :facepalm: