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Comment by placatedmayhem | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for posting this. I am increasingly frustrated with browsers' weak stance on user control. Hijacking back buttons, right clicks, copy functions, and other items has become quite commonplace and even expected. For example, YouTube puts some functions only in the right-click menu and TinkerCad's viewport rotation is primarily right-click and drag.

Presumably, this is in pursuit of making web pages behave more like apps, but it is truly frustrating. If I wanted app behavior, I'd install an app (even something like Chrome's apps). While I'm in a web browser on a web page, I expect to interact with the web browser primarily and the web page through the browser intermediary.

The Line of Death discussion is highly relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13400291

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As a counterpoint, I don’t want to download apps when webapps suffice. I appreciate when a right click gives me the options I’m hoping for rather than a set of generic Chrome actions that aren’t what I want. I also appreciate when copying works how I want it to (e.g. copy paste in google docs or Figma work as I expect it to, including all styles). And hijacking browser history doesn’t seem to me like it adds much exposure, because the attack vector is still there without browser support (when a user enters your site, auto redirect to google.mydomain.com, which then auto redirects to your content. Back button now will return you to google.mydomain.com without relying on custom browser back button shenanigans)

Disclaimer: I work for Figma.

Your post seems to suggest that you feel Figma is a prime example of how webapps are sufficient over desktop/mobile apps. Yet Figma actually does offer desktop/mobile apps so I'm a bit confused by how Figma helps make your point haha

> Yet Figma actually does offer desktop/mobile apps so I'm a bit confused by how Figma helps make your point haha

Im not parent, but given a choice between native app & web app, I'd take the browser. That it's possible at all to have parity is amazing

I’d wager that the web app is far more popular than the desktop app, and that the web app is one of the primary reasons for Figma’s runaway success.

I work for a company that uses Figma and I haven’t seen anyone use the desktop app. I didn’t even know there was one.

If a webpage implements something perfectly, it enhances the experience. E.g. webpages that mess with scrolling - maybe for 20% of sites that do this it makes them 20% better, but 80% of sites that do it become 80% worse.

I'm not sure the benefits of allowing the Figmas of this world to offer a good app experience outweigh the costs of putting the same tools in the hands of every shitty news site.

This is why I mention Chrome's web apps. I see these as a reasonable middle ground. They are a relatively low barrier to entry and could be used as a way to allow the user to opt into app-like behavior. Sites that the user hasn't opted into wouldn't have these abilities.

As another commenter mentions, I'm more likely to disable Javascript by default rather than continue to allow it's abuse. I suspect I'm in the minority though.

Double-redirect attacks not withstanding...

Turn off JS except on whitelisted sites and you'll experience a saner web. Unfortunately even static text is often hidden behind such "app-site" monstrosities these days.

>Hijacking back buttons

There’s nothing that infuriates me more than trying to read an article and suddenly being forced to either spam the back button or close the tab entirely.

This depends on your browser, but on desktop firefox I can get out of these by holding down the back button a moment. It pops up a list of my (real) browsing history in that tab. I can then select where I want to go back to.

Agreed on how infuriating this is though!

Ideally I’d want to be able to toggle between app mode (which would allow hijacking) and browse mode (which wouldn’t).

>For example, YouTube puts some functions only in the right-click menu

If you double-right-click (huh) you can see the "normal" menu. If you use Firefox you can shift-right-click also.

Ding ding ding.

Ever letting Javascript initiate requests on its own was a mistake, to pick one major blunder.

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