HN

Comments (110)

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  andreareina
  > Notably, some instances of back button hijacking may originate from the site's ... advertising platformI feel like anything loaded from a third party domain shouldn't be allowed to fiddle with the history stack.
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  _ink_
  A browser feature I wasn't aware of for too long: long press the back button, to get a list of recent URLs, allowing you to skip anything trying to hijack the back button.
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  p4bl0
  That's cool if they can make it work.I don't understand how Google's indexing work anymore. I've had some website very well indexed for years and years which suddenly disappeared from the index with no explanation, even on the Search Console ("visited, not indexed"). Simple blog entries, lightweight pages, no JavaScript, no ads, no bad practices, https enabled, informative content that is linked from elsewhere including well indexed websites (some entries even performed well on Reddit). At the same time, for the past few years I've found Google search to be a less and less reliable tool because the results are less often what I need.Anyway, let's hope this new policy can improve things a little.
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  musicale
  The iron law of web encrapification: every web feature will (if possible) be employed to abuse the user, usually to push advertising.
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  bob1029
  This seems like a good time to advertise the post/redirect/get pattern.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/GetNot strictly about hijacking back navigation but it can make experience less bumpy if you've got form submissions in the middle of the path.
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  al_borland
  Some Microsoft sites have been very guilty of this. They are the ones that stick in my head in recent memory.
• ffsm8
  I would like to mention that Google own SPA framework, angular, has redirect routes which effectively do back button hijacking if used, because they add the url you're redirecting from to the history.https://angular.dev/guide/routing/redirecting-routes
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  slurpyb
  Porno sites do this thing where every click is a new tab and when you refocus the previous tab, it reloads to an ad.Or so I have been told.
• oliwarner
  Now do the Amazon app.Number of times I've looked for something on my phone, gone through to a product page on Amazon but then have had to back out multiple times to get back to the search listing. Sometimes it's previously viewed products, sometimes it's "just" the Amazon home page. It should be one-and-done.eBay too. I'm sure there are others.
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  hysan
  Took long enough. Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see them say how invested they are in tackling this. Promoting a rule is one thing, but everything SEO related becomes a cat and mouse game. I don’t have high confidence that this will work.
• kristopolous
  Almost 30 years ago I wrote an article advocating for domain level back button with a quasi mode like ctrl to traverse domains.Would have fixed this. Too late now
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  mlmonkey
  But the question is: why are sites allowed to hijack the Back Button?!?
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  CableNinja
  Frustrating it took this long for something to be done about this, but glad its now got something being done.
• monegator
  Phew. for a moment there i thought they would start blocking alternate uses of the back button in apps (for like when it means "go back" and when it means "close everything")That would have severely rustled my jimmies
• G_o_D
  Instagram comments page requires 2 quick back press or else it won't take to previous page
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  dnnddidiej
  Easy fix:JS doesn't let you change back button behaviour.Q. But what about SPA?A. Draw your own app-level back button top left of page.Another solution: make it a permisson.
• psidium
  Ironically, we have an infringing website right now on the front-page of HN (nypost).
• NooneAtAll3
  is there a policy on "home button hijacking"?I'm tired of apps that intercept home button to ask "are you sure?" - home button is home button, return me to the main phone screenalso, ads at the bottom of the screen, so that if you miss home button you open a website
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  twism
  Reddit! I'm looking at you?
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  transcriptase
  >We believe that the user experience comes firstI’ll believe that when YouTube gives me the ability to block certain channels versus “not interested” and “don’t recommend channel” buttons that do absolutely nothing close to what I want.Or a thousand other things, but that one in particular has been top of mind recently.
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  bschwindHN
  Cool, now maybe let's do something about all the shit I have to clear out out my face before I can read a simple web page. For example, on this very article I had to click "No thanks" for cookies and then "No thanks" for a survey or something. And then there was an ad at the top for some app that I also closed.It's like walking into some room and having to swat away a bunch of cobwebs before doing whatever it is you want to do (read some text, basically).
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  synack
  Are they considering all uses of window.history.pushState to be hijacking? If so, why not remove that function from Chrome?
• imiric
  > We believe that the user experience comes first.If by "user" you mean advertisers, sure you do. Everyone else is an asset to extract as much value from as possible. You actively corrupt their experience.The fact these companies control the web and its major platforms is one of the greatest tragedies of the modern era.
• kstenerud
  Now if only they'd do this for Android apps that hijack the back button to pop up things, or say "are you sure you want to leave?"
• sublinear
  > Notably, some instances of back button hijacking may originate from the site's included libraries or advertising platform. We encourage site owners to thoroughly review their technical implementation...Hah. In my time working with marketing teams this is highly unlikely to happen. They're allergic to code and they far outnumber everyone else in this space. Their best practices become the standard for everyone else that's uninitiated.What they will probably do is change that vanity URL showing up on the SERP to point to a landing page that meets the requirements (only if the referer is google). This page will have the link the user wants. It will be dressed up to be as irresistible as possible. This will become the new best practice in the docs for all SEO-related tools. Hell, even google themselves might eventually put that in their docs.In other words, the user must now click twice to find the page with the back button hijacking. Even sweeter is that the unfettered back button wouldn't have left their domain anyway.This just sounds like another layer of yet more frustration. Contrary to popular belief, the user will put up with a lot of additional friction if they think they're going somewhere good. This is just an extra click. Most users probably won't even notice the change. If anything there will be propaganda aimed at aspiring web devs and power users telling them to get mad at google for "requiring" landing pages getting in the way of the content (like what happened to amp pages).
• incognito124
  Now, if they only declared scroll hijacking as spam...
• Animats
  Now to prevent scroll bar hijacking.
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  charcircuit
  Google should actually fix this from the browser side instead of trying to seriously punish potentially buggy sites.
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  tgsovlerkhgsel
  Now do paywalls next.
• andrewmcwatters
  [dead]