Google has released a Chrome called Go Back With Backspace, restoring a feature the company had removed from its browser in Chrome 52.
In May, Google announced that it would remove the “navigate back” function from the Backspace keyboard shortcut, which had been used for so many years as a back button.
Google explained its decision by saying that only 0.04 percent of all Chrome users used the keyboard shortcut to navigate back. Furthermore, 0.005 percent of those were on websites that contained forms, meaning the user had likely pressed it by mistake, thus losing all the form data.
Therefore, the company decided to improve the browser’s UX by removing the ability to go back to the previous page by pressing the Backspace key.
The most hardcore Chrome users did not like this change, and the company received malicious criticism. Eventually, the Chrome community got over it, and developers created other Chrome extensions that replaced this functionality.
In the past, Chrome extension developers have been known to change their minds and start leaking malicious code or ads.
So to avoid this kind of thing, Google decided to release an official extension that replicates the original functionality.
The Go Back With Backspace extension works by simply loading some JavaScript code on your page and works exactly like the original feature, but not on internal Chrome pages.
The extension so far has just over 10,000 installs, meaning that Google was right about its original decision to remove the Backspace functionality.
