All software is quite useless according to Tim Berners-Lee

[boyofbadgers]

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make backspace a keyboard shortcut for back in web browsers?

Comments

[burkesworks]

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make backspace a keyboard shortcut for back in web browsers?

I'd have thought Marc Andreessen and co at the NCSA in Illinois, given they invented browsers as we know them and that that's been there since Mosaic 1.0...

[boyofbadgers]

I suspected that it might go back that far, but since I've never used the shortcut intentionally, and that it's been at least 14 years since I last used Mosaic, I hesitate to trust my own memories of lost form data.

[the_roofdog]

It's becoming rarer and rarer these days to go on a website where back does what you think it should do/is any use at all. Ruddy Ajax, etc.

Does anyone get that thing with LJ in Firefox where it thinks the last three historic pages are all the page you're on, so you have to hit back 3 times to actually go back 1? Doesn't happen in IE.

[boyofbadgers]

Aye. Bluddy fancy pants web designers.

I've not had that problem on LJ, but some other sites seem to require multiple clicks to reverse out of particular pages.

[jauntyalan]

OTOH i quite like the cute trick of using the # fragment bit of the URL as an AJAXy page history holder thing

[catsgomiaow]

I don't know but it confuses the living bejaysis out of me on a regular basis.

[trayce]

I use the backspace as "go back an page" all the time, since I worked out thats what it did! :)

[boyofbadgers]

Stop encouraging them!

[braisedbywolves]

But that's what it's for!

[sbp]

No it's not. That's what meta-leftarrow is for, for your local value of meta.

[sbp]

Some browsers let you turn this off these days.