[meatcider]

> It's a hotkey that essentially no other software uses for the same behavior

Except for Windows Explorer, but who uses that, eh?

Your level of empathy is immaterial to the conversation, but thanks for sharing.

[stouset]

Backspace on Windows Explorer goes up one directory, not back in your history.

In a not-at-all shocking turn of events, it turns out Alt-Left and Alt-Right are in fact the hotkeys for navigating backward and forward through history, so Chrome aligns perfectly with Windows Explorer in this regard.

[JoBrad]

No, it definitely serves as a back shortcut key, not up. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcut...

[Arnavion]

Umm, Backspace in Windows Explorer absolutely does go back in history, unless this changed in Windows 8+ or something (testing on Windows 7 here).

[thaumasiotes]

It goes back in history on windows 10 too. I never actually knew that, but hey.

I definitely believe removing backspace-to-go-back in the browser is the right choice. I did know about that one, solely because every so often I do it by mistake. The problem isn't that I lose data -- I don't. The problem is that this shortcut does nothing but cause me problems I don't want. I never want the functionality, and yet it keeps happening to me anyway because it's so easy to trigger unintentionally. There's no case for this shortcut continuing to exist.

[mrighele]

Backspace used to go up one level up to Windows XP, if I remember correctly. Now you can go up one level with Alt+Up Arrow [1]

[1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcut...

[prof_hobart]

Just tried it on my Windows 7 and it's quite definitely going up one level, not back in history.

If I've got a folder structure

1 | |--1.1 | |--1.2

And I click into 1.1 and then into 1.2, if I then press backspace I end up on 1 (the parent), not 1.1 (the previous in the history).

[cm2187]

Try going into C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4\Folder5

Then click on "Folder3" to go directly to Folder3.

Then press BackSpace, you will go back to Folder5, not Folder2.

To go up the shortcut is ALT Arrow Up.

Now when there is nothing to go back to (you opened a sub folder directly), Backspace goes up instead of doing nothing.

[prof_hobart]

Nope. Just done that, in a tree view. Took me to folder 2

[cm2187]

They must haved changed the behavior. I tried that on Windows 7 with a network drive.

[ricksplat]

In Windows 95 backspace went "Up One" but it's been "Back" ever since IE 4 introduced shell integration.

[cm2187]

No "Backspace" goes back, not up. Up is "ALT Up Arrow".