Backspace keyboard button not working in Firefox 87
Hello,
I just upgraded to Firefox 87 and noticed that I wasn't able to go back to the previous webpage by clicking on the backspace button like what I have done in the past if I'm not using a mouse on my laptop and had to click on the back button in the toolbar with the trackpad. I'm not too sure of why that happened with the upgrade and was a little surprised about that. Hope I can be able to get around this in some way if one of you know anything about this. Thanks.
Chosen solution
This change to disable backspace navigation is mentioned in the Firefox 87.0 Release notes, see Changed:
- about:config => browser.backspace_action = 0
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All Replies (5)
adrian22x said
So this is the reason I couldn't delete some comments I wrote in Reddit.\
That is not related to the settings for the Backspace key. There is a widely reported problem with the "Fancy Pants Editor" on Reddit if you paste anything in Firefox. Until that is sorted, you can use the old school Markdown editor as a workaround, or a different browser if you prefer the "rich text" editing experience.
The backspace key has been the default hotkey to navigate backwards through the history practically since browsers were invented. Changing universal functionality is NOT good design.
A better design solution would be to detect the presence of a form, and if a user navigates with backspace, prompt them to continue lest they lose the form information.
There, see? I'm not even a developer and I can spin a better solution off the dome in thirty seconds. Get it together, Mozilla.
I was having this problem and thought I had messed up some computer setting! Now I understand. Google did the same with Chrome since version 52!
Don´t forget to disable the mouse in the next update so noone accidentally clicks on the little "x" ..
I thought google was stupid for ditching this a while ago - just for backspace addons popping up HOURS after the update..
Pls don´t go the microsoft way and force stupid shit on us, just for us to waste time to look for ways to disable your innovation without breaking it.
-- or at least give us an easy checkbox in the settings menu that makes sense..
Modified by mklorenz
dekachronia said
A better design solution would be to detect the presence of a form, and if a user navigates with backspace, prompt them to continue lest they lose the form information.
I guess caching the keystrokes until the form gets send and autodelete them 5 minutes after the user navigates back (to give him time to undo their "accident") would be to simple..
and anyway: 90% of the forms most users interact with can be autofilled anyway..