Annoying behaviour on tablet browsers

[Mrs Pingu]

Main pain in the behinds are Faceache (as always) and The Guardian websites. Viewed on an Android tablet browser. I tap on a link on one area of the screen. It navigates to a link somewhere else (not always one right next door).  It's really bloody irritating. I don't think it's the touchscreen itself (i.e. using the onscreen keyboard is not a problem).

Does anybody else get this, or is it just me?

[Kim]

Not specifically, but I don't spend a lot of time web-browsing from Androids.

I do find clicking on links with a touchscreen stressful, as my eyes are much higher resolution than my fingers.  (YACF by its nature is a major offender for lots of small link text close together, and I tend to sidestep the problem by using Tapatalk.)

But, on the basis that it might help you work out what's going on, have you enabled "Show taps" from the Android developer options^[1] menu?  It puts a dot where the touchscreen thinks you're touching, which I find provides useful visual feedback and so habitually leave enabled.


_{[1] If you haven't got a "Developer options" menu, go to "About phone/tablet" and tap on the build number field 7 times.  It will then be added to the root of the settings menu.}

[Mrs Pingu]

Woo, secret menu!

[Mr Larrington]

While we’re on the subj. can anyone explain why iOS keeps inserting spurious spaces either before or after copied Stuffs is pasted?  Or rather how to make it only paste the actual copied text and not anything else, the interfering electrogit?

[Kim]

I thought clipboard functionality on smart things being as annoying as possible^[1] was a tradition or an old charter or something.


_{[1] And I say this as a desktop Linux user who can never keep track of which clipboard is which.}

[Mr Larrington]

Divers Microsith products have displayed the annoying habit of selecting an entire word even when you don’t want it to but at least it’s not grabbing stuff from a parallel universe while it does so.  I therefore decree that the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia should Sort Itself Out.  The muppets.

[Feanor]

Vaguely related:
Dear Microsoft, when I'm selecting a bit of text to copy, plz not to be trying to second-guess what I want, and randomly auto-selecting shit before and after what I *actually* selected?
kthxbai

<x-post with The Mayor.>

[Kim]

Woo, secret menu!

It's mostly quite dull, I'm afraid.

Show taps is useful, as it the verbose WiFi thing (or it is when you're trying to troubleshoot WiFi notworks - it shows the MAC addresses and channel information on WiFi screen).  There's an occasionally useful setting to force the device to stay awake.  Unlocking the bootloader and enabling USB debugging are in there for when you're having a really bad Android day, and I vaguely recall one that overlays the screen with something a bit like the output of the *nix 'top' command.  But I've no idea what most of the rest are for.  Useful when developing apps, presumably.

[T42]

My downstairs Adenoid tablet gets the bazazzas* if I try to scroll the Graun page before all the friggin' ads are loaded, and the NYT front page appears to finish loading  then crashes.

* https://www.bedetheque.com/media/Planches/PlancheS_38524.jpg

[perpetual dan]

My ithing browser has an annoying habit of reloading the whole page if i look away for a moment. It’s a recipe from 3 years ago, I reckon caching is safe.
Next most annoying habit is not being able to put the cursor inside a word, e.g. to change capitalisation or spelling.

[Mrs Pingu]

My downstairs Adenoid tablet gets the bazazzas* if I try to scroll the Graun page before all the friggin' ads are loaded, and the NYT front page appears to finish loading  then crashes.

* https://www.bedetheque.com/media/Planches/PlancheS_38524.jpg

Yes I used to find that, but now I'm a subscriber there aren't any ads to load. I just tapped on a link and it took me to an article that wasn't even visible on the screen!
I wonder if there's still some sort of hangover from the ads, even tho I don't see them.
Maybe that's also the problem on FB - I'm using adblock browser for it.

[T42]

My downstairs Adenoid tablet gets the bazazzas* if I try to scroll the Graun page before all the friggin' ads are loaded, and the NYT front page appears to finish loading  then crashes.

* https://www.bedetheque.com/media/Planches/PlancheS_38524.jpg

Yes I used to find that, but now I'm a subscriber there aren't any ads to load. I just tapped on a link and it took me to an article that wasn't even visible on the screen!
I wonder if there's still some sort of hangover from the ads, even tho I don't see them.
Maybe that's also the problem on FB - I'm using adblock browser for it.

Crikey, I'm a permanently-logged-in subscriber too and they still blart the things at me.  If any of them move I mark them "inappropriate".

[Mrs Pingu]

Also using Adblock Browser for the Graun.

The main reason I still use Chrome for anything else is because it's already full of my bookmarks and autocomplete stuff.