Back arrow on your monitor or Backspace key on your keyboard? If the former, you must be using an older version of Chrome.
Below is a link to the reasoning behind the change. Seems like an improvement.
When I first read this thread, I hadn’t automatically updated, and backspace still worked for me. I manually updated, and now it doesn’t. So it seems to be a very recent update that has not been entirely pushed out yet.
Sorry. I meant the backspace key. FYI, I’m running Version 51.0.2704.103 and have never manually updated Chrome.
Then ask. If everyone else gets something and you don’t, that you are the one who is ignorant. This is a huge pet peeve of mine–people bragging about their ignorance.
It’s not complicated. Why do you think multiple ways exist? Because different people have their preferred way to do things. And when you do it a certain way for a long time, it becomes this thing called a habit. And when that habit is broken, you now have to stop and think, making your experience worse.
Let’s say that, from now on, all the keys on the keyboard are in alphabetical order. Sure, everyone can still type every letter, but the people who learned to type will be frustrated.
Removing something people use is always gonna create a problem.
It is fairly easy to fix in an extension, so I was sure there would be one. Here you go:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/backspace-to-go-back/
The only reason is that Google is too dumb to retain form data in your history. You should be able to go back to exactly where you were if this happens.
I’d have no problem with it being shut off if they’d actually made it an option. But, like most of their changes lately, they didn’t. Fortunately, this one is easy to fix with a few lines of JavaScript being injected into the page.
One previous change was a dealbreaker for me when I was considering switching to Chrome (I’ve now given up multirow tabs, and the NoSquint addon no longer works, and thos were why I was using Firefox). Too many features I use all the time need extensions. Hell, apparently here’s another extension you’ll have to have with a useless button that won’t do anything, cluttering up either the address bar or the Chrome menu.
Google is as reluctant to listen to users on features for Chrome as they are with YouTube. Notice how there’s still no way to actually watch the episodes of a YouTube channel in chronological order?
They mostly seem to guess what they think people want and then do it, and then use telemetry to see how people react.
Hey thanks! Your link is broken but I was able to figure out where the add on was. I got my backspace key back. 
I always use the arrow so i don’t have a dog in this fight but I have heard a great deal of people complain that the backspace would back them a page when they didn’t want to so I suspect more people will be happy with this change than not.
What? My backspace is still working! I use it more than alt left arrow, and I just checked it now.
:dubious: Firefox uses backspace to go back a page as well.
This thread is funny to me because the first thing I would download on a new computer/Chrome account is the “backstop” extension to stop this very thing! Drove me nuts when I would try to backspace some typing and it would take me out of the page entirely!
Different strokes and all that…
This is me exactly.I don’t know how many times I’ve been filling out a form, hit backspace to correct something, and instead lost all my entries because I accidentally clicked outside the form field. Good riddance to a bad feature.
Agreed.
Extra credit if you’re on one of those stupid websites that’s somehow implemented a multiple page form on one actual page with custom back/forward buttons implemented in scripts so that five “pages” in if you hit the backspace key because you mistyped in a fixed-length field, which was also scripted to lose focus on the field as soon as the nth character was typed, and you lose all your progress.
Yes, that website is a disaster. But such an extreme modal difference in the operation of a key is simply a problem waiting to happen. There are other keyboard shortcuts for back/forward (I use Cmd-[ and Cmd-], personally).
There is a dropdown menu for "Date added (newest), Date added (oldest) and Most popular.
What? No it doesn’t. I just tried it.
Try again and make sure your cursor isn’t in a form field. Firefox goes back a page when you hit backspace by default. You can turn it off by setting the browser.backspace_action to a value of 2 in about:config (maybe you did that, which would be why it doesn’t happen for you).
On this page (reading, not posting), backspace didn’t make me go back a page in Firefox. Did in IE11. Then I realized, there was no “back” in Firefox because I’d right-clicked and opened in a new tab. :o
I really don’t like the backpace-goes-back functionality, though.
about:config shows that value is currently set to its default value of 2.
ETA: Ah, it’s because I’m running under Linux
Ah, I suppose that explains it.
Well, I have restarted my PC since first commenting in this thread, and Chrome has updated, and I now will have to use alt + left arrow, or either of the two other ways that I can think of right now, both of which use a mouse. I don’t really mind, I’m just glad I was warned.
I thought this was always the case. We still have certain applications at work that require IE, and it pisses me off every time I hit the backspace key! It’s an editing key, not a navigation key.