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A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

developers.google.com

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Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#311
post #307

It's about time. Google is doing so much to keep the web usable. They're the only ones with the teeth to back up standards for mobile web load time, max sender spam rates, leaving browser history alone, etc.

They’re also the ones frequently making it worse with their monopoly.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would this actually fall afoul of their new policy, though? Assume the way that universal links work, is that the site main page is loaded, and some hash is supplied, indicating the page to navigate to from there. That's annoying, but perfectly valid, and may be necessary for sites that establish some kind of context baseline from their landing page.

It's not valid. You went to a page. They said "no, you're actually on the feed," and then immediately navigate you to the page you'd actually intended to visit. This is that they're doing today, and it's terrible. If I go to a URL, I'm NOT going to your homepage feed. I never wanted to go there.

Well, a lot of content, these days, is really data presented in a “window.” You don’t have the old HTML address, anymore.

It’s like reading an eBook in a reader. You always use the reader to interpret, format, and present the data.

It kind of sticks a spike into the old “each page is a document” model.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also www.reddit.com is/was doing the same back button hijacking. From google.com visiting a post, then clicking back and you would find yourself on Reddit general feed instead of back to Google.

News sites are doing it too. Displaying a full display ad when you try to leave

I would just like to point out that this was one of the things that the AMP straightjacket prevented. The whole online news industry has conclusively demonstrated that it can't be trusted with javascript and must be hospitalized, but they refuse to acknowledge their own illness.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#315

As usual, it's a good first step but doesn't go far enough. I don't want my back-button hijacked by _anything_. My issue with back-button hijacking isn't even spam/ads (I use an ad-blocker so I don't see those), but sites that do a "are you sure you want to leave? You haven't even subscribed to our newsletter yet?!"

There's a place for it within SPAs - you want the browser back button to retrace your path through screens in the application, not exit it, unless you are already on the first page. The same would be true for multi-page apps using HTMX or Turbo or something - if you change pages without doing a full page load, you need to push your new URL. The guiding principle is that the browser back button should work as the user expects - you should only mess with the browser history stack to fix any nonsense you did to it in the first place.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#317
It seems like a lot of the APIs that make a website act like an application need to be disabled by default; and some kind of friction needs to exist to enable them.

Edit: I'm not sure what kind of friction is needed, either an expensive review process (that most application developers would complain about but everyone else would roll their eyes) or a reputation system. Maybe someone else can think of a better approach than me?

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#318
post #279

As usual, it's a good first step but doesn't go far enough. I don't want my back-button hijacked by _anything_. My issue with back-button hijacking isn't even spam/ads (I use an ad-blocker so I don't see those), but sites that do a "are you sure you want to leave? You haven't even subscribed to our newsletter yet?!"

On the other hand, "are you sure you want to exit without saving" is a good use-case. But I'd prefer that to be a setting I can allow for specific site.

That API has quite a few heuristics that protect the user:

(At least on the Chromium browsers that I've tested it with)

1: It fails silently if the user hasn't interacted with the page. (IE, the user needs to "do something" other than scroll, like click or type.) This generally stops most SPAM.

2: The browser detects loops / repeated prompting and has a checkbox to get out of the loop.

---

It was a little jarring the first time I used that API and tested my code with it; but I appreciate the protections. I've come across far too many "salesman putting their foot in the door" usage of it.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#319

Ok, you can start with LinkedIn, I'll wait... If you are wondering how it works. You get a link from LinkedIn, it's from an email or just a post someone shared. You click on it, the URL loads, and you read the post. When you click the back button, you aren't taken back to wherever you came from. Instead, your LinkedIn feed loads. How did it happen? When you landed on the first link, the URL is replaced with the homep…

Facebook does this as well.

Thanks for explaining how they do it BTW! I didn't really think about it. I just knew it was shitty.

Re: A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”

#320

Ok, you can start with LinkedIn, I'll wait... If you are wondering how it works. You get a link from LinkedIn, it's from an email or just a post someone shared. You click on it, the URL loads, and you read the post. When you click the back button, you aren't taken back to wherever you came from. Instead, your LinkedIn feed loads. How did it happen? When you landed on the first link, the URL is replaced with the homep…

LinkedIn is malware and it's frankly embarrassing that we seem to be stuck with it. It's like a mechanic being stuck with a wrench that doesn't just punch you in the face while using it, it opens your toolbox just to come out and punch you randomly.

What do you mean "stuck with it"? I just don't use LinkedIn. Do you need it for job hunting for example?
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