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

[biometrics]

Nooo! Wtf! It better be configurable (there is a about:config setting).

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).

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

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...

news.slashdot.org

 

[Jings]

The end is nigh.

 

[Johnatan56]

@biometrics

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addons.mozilla.org

For desktop, and I am using touchpad swipe on laptop normal, so can just scroll left/right for forward/backward.

For keyboard, there's alt left/right key, so not sure why you would want backspace to do it.

 

[biometrics]

@biometrics

Gesturefy – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download Gesturefy for Firefox. Navigate, operate, and browse faster with mouse gestures! A customizable mouse gesture add-on with a variety of different commands.

addons.mozilla.org

View attachment 10161

For desktop, and I am using touchpad swipe on laptop normal, so can just scroll left/right for forward/backward.

For keyboard, there's alt left/right key, so not sure why you would want backspace to do it.

Because I’ve been using it for 25 years.

 

[Johnatan56]

Because I’ve been using it for 25 years.

17* is your limit, 2004 for FF.
I've been using alt+left since 2004, though IE, only went FF in 2006 I think.

"Pressing backspace does different things depending on where the cursor is. If it's in a text input field, it deletes the character to the left. If it's not in a text input field, it's the same as hitting the back button," said Blair McBride, a senior software engineer for Mozilla at the time.
[...]
Subsequent data showed that the Backspace key is, by far, the most pressed keyboard shortcut inside the Firefox user interface, with 40 million monthly active users pressing the key and triggering a "Back" navigation.

To put it in perspective, this was well above the 16 million Firefox users pressing the CTRL+F shortcut to search content inside a page and 15 million Firefox users who pressed the page reload shortcuts (F5 and CTRL+R).

[...]

Firefox users have two alternatives once this change goes live in Firefox 86:

1. Use the ALT+LEFT keyboard shortcut instead of Backspace.
2. 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.

From: https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-to-block-backspace-key-from-working-as-back-button/

Well, definitely helps their userbase by disabling as default, it's still there if you want to re-enable.

 

[biometrics]

17* is your limit, 2004 for FF.
I've been using alt+left since 2004, though IE, only went FF in 2006 I think.


Well, definitely helps their userbase by disabling as default, it's still there if you want to re-enable.

Even Netscape had Backspace as Back:

63 Keyboard Shortcuts for Netscape 8

63 Keyboard Shortcuts for Netscape 8 at keyxl.com. The internet's online database for keyboard shortcuts.

www.keyxl.com

Anyway, I will obviously re-enable it when they do that.

 

[biometrics]

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/87.0/releasenotes/

about:config => browser.backspace_action = 0