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Does anyone use backspace navigation anymore?

3 points by stnvh ↗ HN
It seems deeply ingrained to me that I can hit the backspace key to navigate to the prior page, maybe something from the "older web". I notice this recently when using a website like github, presented with a "Code view is read-only." when simpy trying to navigate the web after visiting a reference page. Am I alone here?

7 comments

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squeegee_scream
I’m not familiar with that and I’ve been a heavy Internet user since the mid 90s, first on Windows, then Linux starting in 2007, then macOS starting in 2012
rendx
I do. I do also use the touchpad back gesture, depending on where my hands are.
p_ing
There are eight billion people on this planet... surely your usage of backspace is not unique.

FWIW this does not work on Firefox for macOS by default. One has to set browser.backspace_action to 0. Looks like FF for Windows is the same way.

tuga2099
mouse middle click to open link in new tab, an then close the tab or ctrl+tab to switch to previous tab.
kasperset
I occasionally will use "command + [ or ]" for navigation.
theGeatZhopa
Of course! That's amongst the things I switch on back again in my Firefox browser.

I hate using browsers that do not support this anymore. I don't care why it has been removed as a feature - I just need a possibility to switch it back on.