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Comment by tjalex | Hacker News Reader

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

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

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.

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