I believe I’ve found a bug. I intermittently go back multiple pages when pressing back button. It frequently happens on youtube, and occasionally happens elsewhere.
In the picture, find my history where I started with the google search for “the chain” (please forgive me for having history from multiple tabs all mixed up). From here I went back and forth with the expected behavior a couple of times looking for the version I remembered. When I found the correct version, I settled in to listen to it in the background for a few songs minutes until it switched to gypsy which wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Naturally enough, I went back once- straight from gypsy to the google search, skipping rhiannon and dreams and the chain. This is reflected on the rightclick drop down from the forward button- observe the three intervening pages which are in the history are not in the forward/back list.
In general, I frequently notice this unexpected and unwanted behavior when I go to youtube. I often go to the homepage, select a video, and then try to back to the homepage only to find it take me back to the blank tab, and when I try to forward it takes me to the video without the intervening homepage.
I seem to recall times when I experienced similar behavior, but cannot put a pin in when or where and cannot at this time, despite trying, reproduce it anywhere but youtube. I haven’t tried downloading chrome or shudder using edge, mostly because fuck that, but also slightly because I am very lazy.
I also didn’t notice this behavior on my laptop which had win10 and firefox (that is, before I switched to linux as a trial over there, but I digress). I tried to search for this error, but google search is terribly corrupt and difficult to get useful results beyond eg song names. I also searched this forum for “back pages” and “back page” and didn’t find anything relevant going back a year.
Do I set my computer on fire for its disobedience, or…?
My first guess would be that this is caused by the website implementing its own navigation/history behavior using History API. That can easily mess things up, or at least not behave like you might want.
…websites can see my history?