Too often have we crafted articulate and persuasive Facebook status updates only to hit the backspace key because we’re dissatisfied with a word. Alas, too often has hitting that backspace key translated to Google Chrome taking us to a previously visited page instead of eliminating the offending word. It’s a problem people have been moaning about in Google’s support forums for years and now it seems the technology giant is going to implement a fix.
Google is currently experimenting with a version of Chrome that removes the ability to go back by using the backspace key. According to Google 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form Interaction, with the latter often resulting in a loss of data for the user.
“Years of user complaints have been enough that we think it’s the right choice to change this given the degree of pain users feel by losing their data, and because every platform has another keyboard combination that navigates back.”
While the fix is currently only available in the Canary version of Chrome, which is meant for developers and early adopters, it may soon be pushed to a stable version of the internet browser. However, if there is enough backlash at the proposal, Google may drop the idea of removing the backspace navigational key.
Google recently held their Google I/O 2016 where they revealed a number of features and products the company has in the works. Read more here.
Source: Chromium Code Reviews
