While surfing the internet in a normal day, you return to the previous site many times thanks to your browser’s back button. However, some websites may prevent the back button from working, forcing you to stay on the site or close the page completely. Even if you press the back button, you cannot get rid of the current page.
While the internet is not as dangerous and unruly as it used to be, we still come across many dubious websites that use nasty tactics to keep you engaged with their content. “Traping” you is one of the more aggressive strategies you’ll come across, a practice that Google calls “history manipulation”: A website like this will flood your search history with spamming links back to their pages, rendering the back button useless. According to you, even if the last site you visited was Google or a similar search result site, due to past manipulation, your web browser thinks it should return to the page you are currently on.
While the natural instinct here is to simply close the browser tab or window, it sure is annoying. The whole reason you have to open a brand new window and do the same search as before is because some sites want to keep you on their site for a second longer than usual. Luckily, you don’t actually need to do this: instead of clicking the back button in vain, you can often just press and hold the button.
If the browser’s back button doesn’t work…
Pressing and holding the back button on your smartphone or computer browser such as Chrome, Safari, or Firefox will show the search history of that tab or window for a certain number of times. In this menu that opens, you can select not only the most recently visited site, but any link in the list that you want to return to. If you find yourself on a site that practices history manipulation, you may see some scary-looking links there, or you may also find that the website in question is listed over and over again.
Look or scroll through these options until you find the search results page or any page you prefer to visit. By choosing the site you want here, you can instantly get rid of this site that has taken over your internet browser. It may also be helpful to make a note to never visit this site again.
It is said that Google has been working on fixing this issue for a while, but the issue still persists. If you’re still using Chrome on the desktop, you don’t need to fall prey to any of these nasty websites. Instead of using the browser as is, you can also activate the hidden side search panel, which lets you see your search results without ever leaving the original search page…
- What is the Chrome Side Serach feature, how to turn it on?
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