Hacker News Reader

Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

This is going to sound hyperbolic, I'm sure, but backspace-as-back is enormously important to my browsing experience. When I recently installed Ubuntu I had a small moment of panic when I realized that hitting backspace in Firefox performed some Ubuntu-specific thing rather than navigating backwards (as it does in Windows), but fortunately there's an about:config pref to re-enable the behavior. Just my two cents.

View on HN

I went through literally the same moment of dread as you a month ago when I installed ubuntu and realized backspace didn't go back in firefox... then I installed chrome and all was well. Might sound odd but I probably would have stuck with firefox on ubuntu longer just if that had been the default. I use escape and backspace keys regularly without even thinking about them until they don't do what I expect.

Why is installing an extension that supports this functionality unacceptable?

Not OP, but the extension mentioned in the bug tracker requires permission to read and change content on all websites. That's just not right for something like this.

Third party or first party ? Third party cause trust issue, and could change to behavior depending on the owner whim. First party would be fine but need to be maintained.

Also extension have a discoverability issue.

I am pretty sure that the chrome team got the telemetry data to justify this "feature" removal. But I am really more in the "use a flag camp"

You can write one pretty easily I'm sure if you're worried about the trust issue. I suspect it is a few lines of code at most. I realize this is not ideal, but it would work. Use a flag is the ideal case for me as well.

Agreed -- I am surprised (/disappointed?) they didn't add a replacement shortcut e.g. Alt+Backspace or something similar.

Alt-Left does the trick and isn't ambiguous with "delete a character."

I thought Alt+Left arrow and Alt+right arrow (or some variant) were universal?

Alt+Left requires moving both hands, Backspace is only one finger away

If only Alt-Gr+Left or Right Ctrl+Left worked...

Alt+Left requires two fingers, but not two hands. You're aware of the alt to the right of the space bar, yes?

Not on many European layouts.

In France at least we have an Alt-Gr key (roughly equivalent to holding Ctrl+Alt) on the right of the spacebar instead of an Alt key. And unfortunately Alt-Gr+Left does nothing. So we have to use two hands to press Alt+Left, that's why I personally prefer using Backaspace

On American keyboards.

It's not the keyboards. It's the keyboard layouts that are configured in software. And not all "American" keyboard layouts make that key an Alt modifier. The Microsoft Windows "United States International" keyboard layout makes it level 3 shift, for example.

And if one includes North America and South America in "American" the same goes for the Canadian Multilingual and the Brazilian Portuguese layouts. (-:

Not all keyboards are the same. Think Laptops, international keyboard layouts etc.

In many keyboard layouts, this key is not an Alt modifier. It is, rather, level 3 shift (in ISO 9995 terminology) - a.k.a. "Option", a.k.a. "Alt Gr".

The grandparent suggested - Alt+Backspace

Thanks for pointing this out. Should be fixed soon: crbug.com/613201.

Alt-[ and Alt-] also work. And they work even if a text field (including the address bar) is selected, whereas backspace or alt-left/right change to their text-editing behavior.

I totally changed my habit and forgot about pressing Backspace to go back in Ubuntu Firefox. What have you done?? (thanks)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com