Forum Discussion
[Small feature] Backspace button to go to previous page
It would be really nice to see this small feature as it will be much more convenient to go back to previous page just like windows explorer, since it was removed from chrome.
Deleted I'd favor that to be an option that is off by default. The reason Google removed the "backspace to go back" functionality is that people would accidentally navigate away from a form they were filling, when they hit back/backspace thinking a text box was active. It's happened to me as well, pretty annoying when it does happen. Even if backspace doesn't go back, there's always ALT-cursor left to do so, although admittedly that's one extra key press.
Deleted wrote:
And for the time during typing , ms could make it disabled automatically when filling the form, it would solve that unintentional navigation during form filling.Deleted That doesn't always work, which is why I think Google disabled it. The scenario: user fills out some text box. Hits tab to go to the next text box. Types a few letters and hits 'back' without looking carefully. Turns out 'tab' had moved to the next screen element e.g. a button or some link to Help. At this point the text box is not active, and hitting 'back' navigates the browser away from the page. They throught pretty hard about this, and I think it's the right call for most users. I'd be fine having it available as an option though.
Edit: see an old (2014!) discussion on the topic here: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=413395
pkasting mentions (comment 46) that they didn't have hard data to figure out the ratio of happy vs unhappy users of the backspace key, but that they got positive response on removing it as a navigation button. There's another less productive discussion about whether it should be an option. The conclusion is "we don't think it should be" from pkasting.
I had never known or used that feature! Deleted
After having just tried this extension in Edge, I can already see how that would be useful.
- Yes there are extensions to do that....But it would be better if it's built-in as edge is the microsoft's product and it would be similar to windows explorer too.
Even google have made the backspace extension [ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-back-with-backspace/eekailopagacbcdloonjhbiecobagjci?hl=en ]....but I prefer it to be built in.
