When Google announced earlier this year that it would be removing the backspace navigation shortcut in Chrome, two camps quickly developed - those in favor of the move and those vehemently against it. Nevertheless, Google pressed forward and made good on its plans last month with the release of Chrome 52 to the stable channel.
The chatter never died down, however, which forced the search giant to reevaluate its decision. Should the company backtrack, reintroduce the functionality and tick off the rest of the user base or leave things how they were?
Fortunately, a third option emerged that should hopefully satisfy all parties involved.
Google recently released an extension for Chrome called Go Back With Backspace that restores the backspace key as a back navigation button... that is, unless you're typing text. The description notes that it doesn't restore the functionality on special pages like in the settings or extensions sections but should otherwise do the trick.
Google's decision to remove the functionality in the first place stemmed from users that accidentally pressed the backspace key while working on a project or typing data into a form, thus losing their progress. Essentially, by removing it, Google was trying to protect users from themselves.
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