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Mozilla Firefox IT Technology

Firefox To Block Backspace Key From Working as 'Back' Button (zdnet.com) 130

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Mozilla developers plan to remove support for using the Backspace key as a Back button inside Firefox. From a report: The change is currently active in the Firefox Nightly version and is expected to go live in Firefox 86, scheduled to be released next month, in late February 2021. The removal of the Backspace key as a navigational element didn't come out of the blue. It was first proposed back in July 2014, in a bug report opened on Mozilla's bug tracker. At the time, Mozilla engineers argued that many users who press the Backspace key don't always mean to navigate to the previous page (the equivalent of pressing the Back button).
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Firefox To Block Backspace Key From Working as 'Back' Button More

Firefox To Block Backspace Key From Working as 'Back' Button

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  • See Chrome; Do Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)

    by what2123 ( 1116571 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:08AM (#60925986)
    I still loath this functionality in Chrome. One of the worst decisions I have had the displeasure of dealing with. It's too bad FF stopped being it's own over a decade ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      Backspace meaning "back" predates Chrome I believe. I seem to remember being caught out by it since forever. I'm sure it was an issue in old IE and Netscape navigator.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Crowded ( 6202674 )
      Dumbest feature EVER. It's been compounded by javascript functions that arbitrarily decide you're done writing something.
      Is ctrl-arrow so farking hard?

      • This. It's an old idea and it was always a bad idea, since it's not as old as backspace meaning "delete previous character," and it's very easy to use it in the wrong context - I've had to re-write quite a few Slashdot posts because of this. Better to stick to Alt-Left/Right arrow controls.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Mod parent up, though it can also be regarded as a bug that Slashdot should have fixed years ago. Alas, in the lack of a viable financial model fixes are slim on Slashdot. (So who are the current owners of the Slashdot debt?)

          • regarded as a bug that Slashdot should have fixed years ago

            Most of the Slashdot bugs have been fixed [soylentnews.org], they've just kept this site running the buggy legacy software for some reason.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              I think the problem is the legacy data, and I admit that I would feel a sense of loss if all the old comments disappeared. However I'm pretty sure the backspace bug still wipes your draft if your focus is in the wrong place.

      • Ctrl arrow is my most hated, accidentally pressed shortcut, always when trying to fill out an extremely lengthy form.

        Get rid of those ones, not backspace.

      • Indeed. You lose focus in the typing field for now reason and now you've lost it all. Forced me to install Lazarus/Form History Control to avoid losing data
      • The next time you catch yourself hitting the back button accidentally, do me (and yourself) a favor: don't let go. If you turn your short press into long, you get the tab history list instead of instantaneously losing your page. I have never had an issue with thinking that the back button should do anything other than go back a page (when viewing a tab) or default Android back button behavior (in UI elements such as settings). This is the first I'm even hearing of the problem, so please do what every goo
    • Chrome removed it ages ago...? Or are you saying you like using Backspace to go back?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:03PM (#60926436)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • let's make the escape key work like chatroulette.

    • Re:See Chrome; Do Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)

      by slazzy ( 864185 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:23PM (#60926616) Homepage Journal
      I help people with computers a lot, and an amazing amount of my job is figuring out which shortcut key people accidentally pressed to make their "screen disappear" etc. I really think computers should have a pro mode and a basic mode, then applications like web browsers could enable different functions depending on if they are in basic mode or pro mode.

      • I really think computers should have a pro mode and a basic mode, then applications like web browsers could enable different functions depending on if they are in basic mode or pro mode.

        As I understand it, many in the tech hobbyist scene object to such moves on grounds that when it's been tried in the past, companies have all too often put a paywall on switching to pro mode. Consider retail game consoles vs. debug consoles, or the $99 per year fee for XNA on Xbox 360, or the $99 per year fee to run your own software on your own iOS device prior to Xcode 7, or the former $50 fee to upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro.

    • I think this is related to Google giving them a boat-load of money.

  • " Ctrl-[ " should be included, if not the backspace key. Some shortcuts are useful..

  • Good. Way overdue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Optimizer ( 14168 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:14AM (#60926042)

    Far too many times I've been in the middle of editing a text field on a web form when for some unknown reason my press of the backspace key was misinterpreted and instead of delete previous character I typed, it was "exit to previous page and discard all the stuff user spent the last five minutes filling out".

    As an aside, it seems like a lot of pages are sending every keystroke back to update as you are typing stuff in, and whenever there is a hiccup in ping speed the user experience goes to crap. I wonder if the webpage devs ever even consider the impact of a crappy connection, just or assume everyone else is physically 50 feet and one network switch away from the server. It seems to have been happening a lot these days, what with all the DDOS attacks and outages going on.

    • In addition, some mice "conveniently" map a side button to the back button. Sometimes the button gets pressed accidentally when bumping the mouse against the keyboard. Mine does that and I can't turn it off, so I just glued the button in place.
      And Safari on iOS maps the Swipe Right gesture to the back button. You know, that gesture that you use all the time when zooming in and panning across a page.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      At least some of that is telemetry gathering to see if you are bot.

      It sucks, but expect more of it not less going forward.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      That would seem to be the fault of the web developer, not the browser. If you have started filling out the form, the page should confirm you want to navigate away.

      • That would seem to be the fault of the web develope

        It's never the developer's fault, either for web development or general programming. It's always the manager's fault.

        Don't believe me? Wait for replies.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        That would seem to be the fault of the web developer, not the browser. If you have started filling out the form, the page should confirm you want to navigate away.

        Or Firefox stores the form information for you, If you hit backspace by accident (usually because the cursor fell out of a text box) pressing Forward again will bring up the form again with all your information filled in.

        Ironically, it was the "fancy" web pages that prevented Firefox from saving and restoring form data.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        the page should confirm you want to navigate away.

        How would it do that? Trapping beforeunload in JavaScript would work for many, not for people who block JavaScript. A lot of people here claim to have turned off JavaScript on grounds that intrusive adtech has poisoned the well. Others block nonfree software in general, including any nontrivial JavaScript that isn't machine-readably marked as available under a free software license [wikipedia.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Strange, I've never seen this behaviour (just tried it, no going back to the previous form/page). Is it because this Thinkpad has proper previous page/ next page keys?

    • There's a tension in software development between keeping developers productive and giving them a reasonably easy way to experience what an end user might. Not too many years ago the phrase, "not eating your own dog food" would lead managers to do silly things like pass out obsolete workstations to their devs. Clearly, you don't want to cripple devs like this, but that leaves you with things like the "backspace feature" because the devs never see use cases that involve marginal equipment.

      Maybe that's a busi

    • Re:Good. Way overdue (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LVSlushdat ( 854194 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @01:08PM (#60926996)

      Far too many times I've been in the middle of editing a text field on a web form when for some unknown reason my press of the backspace key was misinterpreted and instead of delete previous character I typed, it was "exit to previous page and discard all the stuff user spent the last five minutes filling out".

      THIS is why I learned a LONG time ago, if I need to fill out a large text box on a website, I open a notepad window, type/edit my text there, then when I am completely happy with the text, I copy/paste it into the web form text box, as I feel your pain as this idiocy has happened to me MANY times before I wised up to this method..

    • I like to refer to this as "designed by Apple in California" problems. It's not an Apple specific problem, but rather a problem where technology is being developed in a bubble where the creators can fathom things working non-optimally. Thinks like slow or intermittent network connectivity, cold weather, low cell signal, still using an spinning disk causing abysmal software performance, and other things of this nature that a lot of developers don't consider when testing.

      Even a basic SSD is getting slow at

    • an basic website should at satellite / dialup pings

  • This will be a deliberately introduced fault.

    A far better idea would be to disable the Caps Lock. This will only inconvenience the fundamentally stupid.

    • Install colemak keyboard layout [colemak.com]. Besides making touch typing more relaxed on your fingers, the default is to remap capslock as backspace.

      The keyboard layout works across applications, not just in Firefox.

      If you want to remap individual keys in Windows (simultaneously for all the keyboard layouts), you can as well do it via registry. There are little utilities that help that, e.g., Sharpkeys [github.com].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dshk ( 838175 )

      "A far better idea would be to disable the Caps Lock. This will only inconvenience the fundamentally stupid."

      Ironically, just the opposite. Caps Lock is frequently used by touch-typists.

      Quoting from Sean Wrona:
      " I recommend using caps lock instead of shift to type capital letters to allow more flexibility in the hand that you would normally use shift with."

      However, I agree - although for different reasons ;) - that keyboards should be more easily customizable even across different devices.

  • Why can't we configure this crap? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:19AM (#60926080)

    Changing the key binding shouldn't require a software update... This should be a Preference option that we can set for ourselves - rather than Backspace, or No Backspace, we should be able to set whichever keyboard key we want as the shortcut to this action. Also, there should be an option to determine if this shortcut should be always active, or deactivated sometimes (such as when editing text in a form)

    • Re:Why can't we configure this crap? A: Assumption (Score:4, Interesting)

      by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:37AM (#60926240)

      Changing the key binding shouldn't require a software update... [...]

      I agree 100% with you.

      But the reason we can not configure this crap, is that the Firefox crew is of the mentality of:

      "Many people use the same computer with the same account, so the browser should work consistently for all of them"

      This is not an inherently right or wrong assumption. Just an assumption.

      I live in Venezuela, and I am priviledged enough to own more than one device* (and some of those devices boot more than one OS). But I see day in and day out less priviledged people that have to share a machine, work from cybercafes, etc.

      My contacts in LatAm, Magreb, SE Asia and other parts report similar stories. I have no contacts in Africa (other than the magreb), but I imagine a similar situation.

      But most of the developers of things like Mozilla, Chrome, Gmail, etc are located in affluent regions like Cupertino, SF, LA, Seattle, Boston, and some European cities where even the bus they take has WiFi, and a lot of people have more than one device.

      You see these compromises all the time. See, for example, how you log in to GMail vs. Outlook.

      GMail remembers every single login in from the machine. When I go to the university to teach, and use a public machine, is always funny to see a list of who is who in the GMail login page. Guess which assumption those developers made.

      Meanwhile, if you try to log on to Outlook, you will have no clue who loged on before you, and no one will know you loged on from that machine. Guess which assumption Outlook developers made.

      So, that's the reason, an assumption.

      * A desktop, a Laptop and a Phone, all with firefox. Ah, and a DS1515+ NAS.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Aczlan ( 636310 )

        Sounds like the people running the university IT department and Cafe need to set their computers up properly.
        Private/Incognito mode or "never remember history" mode has been around for how many years?
        Computers that have a shared account should be setup to not remember history or filled in form data by default.
        IIRC at least some of the software that they were running for Cafe use will do that (or did when we looked at it at my previous employer).

        Aaron Z

    • Changing the key binding shouldn't require a software update... This should be a Preference option that we can set for ourselves - rather than Backspace, or No Backspace, we should be able to set whichever keyboard key we want as the shortcut to this action. Also, there should be an option to determine if this shortcut should be always active, or deactivated sometimes (such as when editing text in a form)

      Not as flexible as you'd like it, but it is configurable to not go back a page.


      http://kb.mozillazine.org/Brow... [mozillazine.org]

      • Thanks! I changed this setting to "2", which isn't one of the prescribed option. This has the effect of unbinding the backspace key from the application. Now it only acts like a backspace key in text fields, which is exactly what I wanted.
    • They are making it configurable. From the article. Set the browser.backspace_action to 0 in the about:config settings panel to re-enable support for the Backspace key as a Back button.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Well, it's nice of them to add an On/Off switch, but this is not configurability, not really... This is an option to turn it Off or On.

        Configurability would mean that you can decide what your shortcut keys are by defining a list of them.. For example, you can add a different Key combination to the list of shortcut keys and set the action to "Go back a page". You might decide that the back button should open a New tab instead and that Ctrl+Backspace goes back a page... That is configurabilit

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        That explained why I haven't seen this problem in a long time. I checked my about:config, and yep there it was. I went and put it into another Mozilla-based browser I regularly use. But it's also been less of a problem because I prefer to open web pages in new tabs, where there isn't a page to go backwards to.

    • Why can't we configure this crap?
      Changing the key binding shouldn't require a software update... This should be a Preference option that we can set for ourselves...

      Navigate to about:config, then scroll down to "browser.backspace_action", Set it to 2 or greater to unmap the backspace key entirely.

      This has been configurable [mozillazine.org] in Mozilla everything since at least 2006. It has also been pretty clearly documented and a quick search for "why backspace is back on browser" returns an answer as the first result for me on booth Google and Duckduckgo.

      For other commenters who are wondering where this behaviour came from, it was originally in IE.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by WallyL ( 4154209 )
        I will miss the configurable option. Oh, and I always made backspace take me back, by the way. Maybe it'll be a single patch so I can add it back to my builds...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by doom ( 14564 )

      Exactly. And here's a bold new idea: how about we make the entire keymap customizeable, and let users modify what each keystroke does?

      (Over time, every software application evolves into emacs-- typically a badly implemented, partial re-invention of emacs.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      I would like this option for the asinine F12 key. How many people really need the F12 key to default to the dev tools? I have a KVM that uses the F12 key as a possible hot key to swap between computers. I found this a good key to use but if I have a browser as the focus window on one of the computers when I get back to it I have to close the dev tools. All browsers seem to like to use the F12 key to bring up web dev tools even though 95% (my guestimate) of the users never need these tools.

      • I would like this option for the asinine F12 key.

        You have misidentified user species. F12 key is for cats. My cat always brings up the web dev tools panel when she carefully walks around the keyboard (she knows I don't like it) but steps on the corner of it just-so-slightly. It has something to do with the average paw size and feline ergonomic distance between the upper key row and screen on MBP notebook.

        I wouldn't let an ass use this notebook, though. It has to have sturdier design for the larger hoofs, in the first place.

    • about:config -> search for browser.backspace_action, set it to 2 to disable it as go back a page. I suspect 2 will be the default in this version, which works for me since I don't have to go change it to 2 on every install.

  • Is it just me, or is the fact that a change in the "backspace" button default behaviour is front page news for Firefox and indication on how relevant Firefox is nowadays?
    I used Firefox exclusively for years. Tried to keep it even after they broke all the useful plugins (main reason I loved it), until it got so slow compared to other browsers I had to give it up. I use it rarely now and it is definitely not as slow as it was, but there is nothing really that it offers over the competition (except the "not us

    • t if you find Firefox bad on iPhone and Chrome not much better, give Edge a try. I've never used Edge on Windows (well I don't use Windows), but I got the tip about Android Edge from our Linux admin, hence I tried it. And it is actually more stable than either Firefox and Chrome!

      All the iOS browsers use Safari's WebKit. I'd be surprised if a different skin made a huge difference in performance.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        Uh, I meant to say "on your phone", I am talking about Android Edge of course, on iOS you get Safari as you say....

    • Is it just me, or is the fact that a change in the "backspace" button default behaviour is front page news for Firefox and indication on how relevant Firefox is nowadays?

      When a matter of long-term stupidity seems to be resolved, at a company with a long track record of many long-term stupid in-the-publics-face user interface decisions...

    • Firefox is not irrelevant, whenever you work with video and are not in Firefox a notice comes up to use Firefox: https://www.genolve.com/svg/en... [genolve.com]

    • Navigator, on all platforms.

      No reason? How about not using spyware as a browser, and one that actually has working ad blocking? I use plugins from the EFF, to paywall bypass to ublock origins (thank god for Raymond Hill) on top of my network level DNS Blacklist which pulls from 3 aggregated sources every day. Anything I don't like I can toggle in about:config if it's not in the settings UI.

      When I have to use someone else's shit it's astonishing at how fucking awful the web is without these. I don't know

  • because I only use it once or twice a year.

  • Meh (Score:2)

    by Falos ( 2905315 )

    No strong feelings, more used to alt+left anyway.

    If they want to fix something, I've had sites with multi-page content (eg webcomic) that will interpret sideways scrolling as a command to change to a new web page. This is vaguely good, except it will frequently misread vertical scrolling (ie two-finger trackpad) as such. Tried to dig around for a toggle under the hood to disable, no luck.

    On the topic of scrolls, I disagree with the era of "mobile-style" scrolling, trying to buck the desktop standard for dec

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      Because the metaphor is a window. When you are scrolling, you are moving the window down, and the scroll thumb moves in the same direction. Also, the direction reflects the way you are moving through the content. Scrolling down makes you go down through the document. It's pretty obvious and I hate the way some designers want to buck that trend (I'm looking at you Apple).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      The distinction is that on mobile, you are "physically" dragging the image around like a piece of paper by touching the screen, where on desktop you are virtually dragging the scroll bar up and down remotely, in the way you can still do by clicking on the scroll bar. Scroll bar-style control direction and "always show scroll bars" are the two first things I set up in an OS X install. I've just been doing things that way for too long.

      I also turn off ALL "gestures" except two-finger scrolling, because they c

  • is this needed or wanted?

  • Look up the changelog. Download as .patch file. Edit in text editor and remove everything unrelated. Store in /etc/portage/patches/www-browser/firefox/backspace-back-alright.patch. emerge firefox. Done. For all future updates too.

  • The "flexible space" you can add to your toolbar has stopped working. The space is taken away in the toolbar, but the text input box is not there.

    Sloppy and careless programming

  • By FAR, users are bit by the premature "Enter" key causing an early submit. By far. Fix that first if you're going to do anything.

    • Enter=Submit is actually pretty useful. I can't tell you how many poorly done web sites I've been to where the submit button is broken, badly scripted, or the page is rendered so that it's outside the bounds of a form that pops up in a window without scroll bars. The latter being the most common, and would tend to happen whenever technology advanced to a new screen resolution, and badly designed forms and browsers didn't handle the DPI/pixels/size conversions well on sites that were hard-coded to expect a

  • "Users" (Score:2, Funny)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 )
    I know one "user" that's going to love this. My cat. She's the only "user" I know that uses the space bar to navigate a webpage.
  • Next up, can we get assorted devices and applications to stop using ctrl-h for help? I've got fingers trained for more than 45 years that ctrl-h is backspace and get tripped up regularly. (Similarly for ctrl-i being tab, but that doesn't seem to have been hijacked as often.)
    • It bothers me most when an app simply ignores the control key state entirely, something that once was relegated only to video games (for good reason), but is now making it into applications (for no good reason)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      Also the F1 key, I have been known to physically remove the F1 key cap from keyboards because of this. The worst part is that the "help" that gets called up was usually useless to begin with, since it was only there as a checklist feature. Another favorite key cap for me to remove is the INS key, as there are GUI text editors out there that actually bother to implement "overtype" mode.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:00PM (#60926414)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • My FF has never used backspace as a Back navigation button. Unless I'm in a text box, where it works as one expects it to, it doesn't do squat.

  • In FF, you input something, lose the focus (for some reason, could be a "well made" JS on the page), and hit backspace and f..., have to start again!
  • Many notebook and ultrabook vendors seem to pay no attention to an ergonomical keyboard layout, they just cram all necessary keys together. I feel my key layout tastes are a bit strict, I can tolerate Dell and Lenovo, a little bit of Toshiba, but that's it. Trying to use key combinations like Alt+Arrow or PgUp/Down are often a hassle (tiny, misplaced, in some cases even involving the Fn key). Especially when travelling, I actually like to have prominent keys like Space and Backspace that have clearly define
  • This has been a nuisance since it's creation. You want a back button? Pick a CTRL function, and/or make 5 button (Technically 6 button) mice the standard (which they also should be).

  • Why has it taken so long to change this stupid default? I lost multiple filled forms over this shit, until I figured out how to unmap the key.

    The feature has been configurable but the default is wrong. Enter about:config in the address bar, then search for browser.backspace_action. The default value is 0. Set it at 2 and the backspace key does not navigate pages. (It will still work as backspace in text fields.)

  • Going back to the previous page if I hit backspace too many times in a form was a pet peeve. But I would have been happy to just have a way to turn it off.

  • Backspace as navigation was a horrible idea since its inception. "Disable Backspace Navigation" was one of the most popular add-ons for a reason.

    However, this will be a rare bright spot in Mozilla's continual ruination and churn of the browser UI as they continue a decade of copying everything Chrome does.

  • This was never a useful feature.
  • Reading these comments, clearly I'm in the minority, but I actually prefer Backspace=Back. I virtually never have an issue with this, as it seems any decent website knows not to go back if you're typing in a textbox. Hopefully someone releases a small add-on to reinstate this feature as they did when Chrome pulled this same move a while back.

  • You can change backspace behavior using the browser.backspace_action key in about:config

    It used to default to "2" (backspace is not "back") on Linux and "0" (backspace is "back") on Windows and OSX.

    Now it is "2" on every OS. If you don't like it, just change it back to "0".

  • I use the backspace feature, often. The user can no longer select a bookmark on Firefox Mobile.

  • continues it's relentless march forward to eliminate any semblance of usability..

  • attend the protest/invasion in Washington DC?

    [ducks and runs from flying tomatoes]

    Sorry... couldn't resist.... we all need a laugh occasionally.

  • Because many users didn't really want to delete those files!

  • I'm used to obligatory references to XKCD for this sort of thing, but yesterday Dilbert provided I think the perfect response to many articles about Firefox, Gnome, etc....

    Keyboard Upgrades [dilbert.com]

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