Click a link and need to go back 10x to get back. Yes, I enjoy the footballs.
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Three things.
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Yes. Sometimes this is malice. Sometimes this is an attempt to drive impressions and page views.
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This can also be caused by poorly configured web applications that update in real time. If, say, some sports website is giving you real-time data about the game as it progresses, a poorly configured web application might be creating a dynamic URL for every change. When you access the older page, it will be instructed to take you to the most recent data, so pressing back is taking you to old data on that page, and then immediately realizing that data is old so refreshing it with the most relevant data.
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This is a super common misconfiguration in single page web applications. Domain.com will take you to an application that renders at domain.com/en-us/home. Pressing back takes you to domain.com, and guess what happens next?
This is basically 99.99% of these cases. I would say if its on some shitty news site with 1000 ads that somehow sneak by AdBlock and UBlok Origin, it’s case 1. Otherwise, it’s case 2 or 3.
The picture instance is either case 1 or 2.
Any website managed/developed by someone certified in the last decade or more knows not to do that.
It’s absolutely malicious, both to drive SRO and to keep “accidental” clicks from backing out so quickly
and neither case provides a service in a state that should be exposed to the outside. Either due to malice or incompetence.
I know this site, it’s 1 for sure
Microsoft website does this (especially their useless answer), I guess it’s malice
MS makes a redirect to log you in, you can hit back button twice to escape. Bad design but not malice.
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I think there was an extension named Skip Redirect that solved this issue…
I was just thinking about this.
Super annoying because it can actually be fixed by using
History.replaceState()overHistory.pushState().I guess the reason they do it is either to keep you stuck on their sucky site, or just incompetence.
You’re right, but “incompetence” seems harsh. Maybe I’m just sensitive today.
Hanlon’s Razor: Don’t attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity.
Big Hanlon fan, but I don’t think stupidity is enough to explain why the site behaves that way.
I’m not a fan of Hanlon’s Razor, because I feel like people believe it to be some kind of steadfast law of the universe when in reality it’s just a “rule of thumb.” And honestly not even a great one imo.
I feel like there are a whole lot of bad people that use the concept as cover to help them get away with the heinous shit they do. People who do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I consider the razors pseudo logic.
idk, it seems like with this being a company that generates revenue from “clicks” doing something that essentially makes a person refresh the page 20 times seems like a good decision to make
I feel like when you’re talking corporations, hanlons razor needs to be reversed. Never attribute to stupidity what could be adequately explained by malice. We’ll call it Nolnahs razor.
Nolnah’s Razor…I like it, got a ring to it!
Corporations are run by stupid humans though.
MASSIVELY infuriating.
This is why I have dozens, if not hundreds of tabs open. Usually I open links in a new tab so I can easily tab back to where I came from. Using a hierarchical tab manager makes this work better because when you’re done with the topic, you close the whole branch… theoretically.
This tactic also seems targeted at mobile users where it’s harder to break the loop.
yo honk honk am here to help. Right click the back button to bring up a menu of several previous pages select when it was the search engine or whatever you used before. For Firefox. If you’re on chrome, you can cry. Honk honk, goose out.
Wait, toads don’t goose…
Isn’t that exactly what OP’s screenshot is depicting?
Honk honk am goose, no braincells. Honk.
On Firefox you can also hold your left click on the back arrow for the same effect.
Goose says “Gaa-ga”(Hauge)
Added to my blocked websites
Well enjoying a game of footie is your first mistake. Oh wait, I got confused, too many euros around, sorry about that. Footie is what I call soccer, aka foreign football.
Enjoying a game of football is your first mistake.
What is the point of this comment? I’m curious as to what you were trying to achieve here.
They were trying to be cunty, and in that they were a success.
Microsoft does this with the Xbox forums and it bothers me so much
MS does this with ALL their forums, and it’s cunty.
MS does this. They do it everywhere.
Quickly going back twice always works with MS forums. First page logs you in (or fails) and the second is the page you wanted to go.
They do this with all their sites ime.
Only the first time you visit in a while though.
I think it’s taking you away to a login page, logging you in, then bringing you back.
I can see the point if you were going to ask or answer a question, but 99% of the time you just want to see how somebody else didn’t get their problem solved by some random Indian guy who people assume works for Microsoft, who think the solution to everything is running “sfc /scannow” which has replaced chkdsk as the command most likely to take a long time, do nothing, and make the question asker go away without a solution to their problem.
I don’t allow any cookies on my browser, so that would explain why it happens to me every time
This could easily be fixed by the browsers but they don’t. Sure wish these back button tricks would stop. Especially news sites try to keep you from getting back to your search and makes your page refresh over and over. I wonder if that behavior counts as hits to their advertisers.
I don’t know about “easily.” replaceState() is actually intended to make single-page apps easier to use, by allowing you to use your back button as expected even when you’re staying on the same URL the entire time.
Likewise, single-page apps are intended to be faster and more efficient than downloading a new static page that’s 99.9% identical to the old one every time you change something.
Fixing this bad experience would eliminate the legitimate uses of replaceState().
Now, what they could do is track your browser history “canonically” and fork it off whenever Javascript alters its state, and then allow you to use a keyboard shortcut (Alt + Back, perhaps?) to go to the “canonical” previous item in history instead of to the “forked” previous item.
Pop a window open with a your app in it (with the user’s permission) without a back button if you want that.
A web page should be a document, not an experience.
That would absolutely make everything worse, no question; the web should be more integrated, not less. We shouldn’t incentivize even more companies to silo off their content into apps.
I think the word ‘app’ was being used in place of ‘webapp’ there, which is the general target audience for this feature.
Yes, I think you’re correct, but using browsers to coerce the web back into static documents will result in companies creating their own apps so that they can continue to deliver experiences. And the past 10+ years has shown that users will absolutely follow them.
Sorry, this comment was mainly just providing the previous user with a correction because they seemed to think that the other person that they were replying to was talking about forcing people to use phone apps, which I assume we all agree is bad and would likely work if there were a concentrated push for it.
Concerning your points after “using the browser”: I want websites to use replaceState and manage their own intra-page navigation with a cookie. They can still intercept the back button as they do now, but they should only get the single history entry until they switch to a new page, if they ever do.
I can handle life without the legitimate use case if it means no more clickjacking bs from companies that should know better
I’d prefer not to let the bad actors dictate browser design.
“Let’s get rid of images since companies can use images to spoof browserchrome elements.”
“Let’s get rid of text since scammers can pretend to be sending messages from the computer’s operating system.”
“Let’s get rid of email since phishing exists.”
Nah. We can do some stuff (like the aforementioned forked history) to ameliorate the problem, and if it’s well-known enough, companies won’t find it necessary anymore. Heck, browsers like Firefox would probably even let you select Canonical Back as the default Back Button behavior, and then you can have the web the way you want it (like people who disable Javascript).
I’m frustrated that removing bad functionality is being treated as a slippery slope with obviously bad and impossible jokes as the examples chosen.
I see a bad feature being abused, and I don’t see the removal of that bad feature as a dangerous path to getting rid of email. I don’t ascribe the same weight that you seem to towards precedent in this matter.
I’ve been working in full stack for long enough to know that history manipulation is as much a part of the modern web as images and email. I’m not trying to be flippant, that’s just the state of the modern web. Single-page apps are here, and that’s a good thing. They’re being used badly, and that’s endemic to all features. So no, history manipulation is not “bad functionality,” though I admit it’s not fully baked in its current implementation.
I accept that it’s how things are, I just personally feel as though the only way this feature could ever work as it does now is with the implementation it has now, and that the convenience of single page webapps that use history manipulation is not worth the insane annoyance of helping my grandma get out of websites that tell her that she has been hacked by the FBI.
Yeah, I get it, but like…the same could be said for emails in a world where phishing exists.
like people who disable Javascript).
i do that, and i found that a TON of microsoft & bank/work websites just refuse to do anything without it. i love the modern internet /s
Yeah, I get it. But I fear that ship has sailed long ago.
I just default to opening in a new tab because of shitty UX like this
You’ve reminded me of a similar frustration that I’ve never found the answer to - though it may be adblock related - in that whenever I open a link to eBay it completely wipes the history for that tab. Or possibly it opens a new tab and kills the parent. Either way I always forget about it until the next time and then it drives me mad all over again.
Reddit has been doing this when I click a result from a Google search (yeah, sometimes you have to)
It’s fucking annoying and I hope whatever JavaScript trick lets them do this gets blocked
I use a Firefox based browser and this hasn’t happened to me, are you using Chromium or Safari? Could be a browser specific issue
Firefox. I’m fairly convinced it’s something to do with UBO or one of the blocklists but I’ve never taken the time to dig into it properly.
Not sure about that site specifically, but others that’s done it to me was easy to get around. Most of them are thwarted with basically double clicking the back button.
As the screenshot illustrates, the redirects have been repeated many times to thwart that strategy.
I get that, forgot to mention that clicking the back button very very fast is what usually works for me.
Regardless, it’s annoying af
Aren’t they scamming their advertisers too? Because if you click the back button a bunch of times it’s gonna reload a bunch of them on every click. At least if your internet is fast enough.
Impressions are usually deduped, meaning multiple impressions from the same user during the same session are just counted as one. The big ad networks are extremely careful to avoid miscounting of any sort and will generally err on the side of undercounting rather than overcounting (since telling advertisers they got more impressions or clicks than reported is way better than telling them the numbers were accidentally inflated). Of course, there’s the occasional bug, but it mostly works as expected.
I just realized you meant data deduplication instead of “not duped by you bitches anymore”
lol yeah I should have been clearer
Does it also cover reloading with different ads? (such that it would count impressions for different advertisers)
Usually the ad needs to be in your viewport for at least a few seconds to count as an impression. If you were just going back quickly, or quickly refreshing the page, it won’t count. If you go back or refresh, see a different ad, wait a bit, then refresh again, I think it’d count.
For skippable ads on YouTube, the advertiser only pays if you watch past the point where you can skip it. If I remember correctly, you have to watch at least 30 seconds of the video (or the full video if it’s less than 30 seconds) for it to count as a view.
People have been complaining about this for a long time https://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=613804
Anyone know of a good modern extension for this?
You can right click (long press on mobile) to skip back to the page that took you there
That’s what OP has done; that’s what we’re seeing in this screenshot.
The back button is highlighted. This list is the list of options OP gets when he right clicks the back button.
I don’t see evidence of them skipping back two pages past the point in history that redirects which is what prompted my comment.
