Some sites add parts of a page to history as you scroll down (or up) -- by changing the hash (#) at the end of the address -- maybe to make it easier to bookmark the part you're currently looking at. I'm not sure what is happening on the Guardian site, I didn't see any extra items on the Back button. Does it happen with certain types of pages? A link would be helpful.

By the way, I was monitoring for extra entries by right-clicking the Back button, which is an option for jumping back more than one page. (I think most browsers use this same technique.)

Note that you can also hold the left mouse button to make the tab history drop-down list appear.

Thanks for your interest. I had the problem with the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news) when going to a second level - for example the article about Windsor staff near the top today. I moved down the page without selecting anything and three extra entries appear on the history list. I understand what is said about the page having several separate sections, but this is not a problem with IE or Chrome. I thought there might be a setting somewhere to prevent this behaviour.

Does this still happen if you start Firefox in Safe Mode?

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

• Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
• Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

I can't reproduce it, but I tested in my normal profile with all the add-ons and accumulated settings, so it's probably not exactly comparable to your setup.

This happens on ALL sites that refresh their content (for instance all online news services).

It happens in safe mode.

It eventually chews up all memory and crashes firefox.

This is a relatively newish problem.

This problem does NOT occur with other browsers such as IE and Opera

PS This is easily reproducible e.g. visit http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/

If I create a new Firefox profile, I see a lot of history activity under the back button that I cannot associate with any actual page (re)loads in the Web Console (or in the places database which stores history). This is particularly strange because some of the changes under the back button seem to be retroactive to earlier entries instead of purely additive. (See attached screen shot.)

A script used by the site might be altering history. I can't tell what's going on or how my regular profile blocks it at this point.

Thanks once again for the interest.

I should say that my problem was with the 'vanilla' version I downloaded from Mozilla - there are no obscure add-ons involved. (I'm running Win 7)

Is there ever likely to be a fix? I think i have encountered something similar with other browsers on some websites ( I think with hindsight) - but nothing as extreme as this. The sort of thing I mean is having to press the back button twice - not enough to start investigating what was happening.

Regards

The get something fixed, we usually need to describe exactly how the site is doing it and then someone can decide whether it is a bad behavior that needs to be blocked, or whether the site needs to change what it is doing. Unfortunately I can't dive into the site's scripts at the moment...

I understand that most support is from volunteers and i'm not making any demands. Its just that this is one feature which detracts fron Firefox as far as I'm concerned.

I think the specific problem from my point of view relates to the operation of the back button itself. I want the single press of this button to take me back to the last history entry which differs from the one being displayed. The actual history list is not of interest to me - I do not see it. I think the action in response to the single button press should revert to the last different address by scanning the list. It does not need to edit the list and perhaps risk messing up other things which rely on it.

The operation of displaying the history list - right click or extended left click for example - is for me a second order problem. I would suggest however that even here the list should not show sequences of repeated addresses. There is no point in seeing six similar addresses which all point to the same location within the same page.

Just my thoughts

Regards

Grizewood said

I understand that most support is from volunteers and i'm not making any demands. Its just that this is one feature which detracts fron Firefox as far as I'm concerned. I think the specific problem from my point of view relates to the operation of the back button itself. I want the single press of this button to take me back to the last history entry which differs from the one being displayed. The actual history list is not of interest to me - I do not see it. I think the action in response to the single button press should revert to the last different address by scanning the list. It does not need to edit the list and perhaps risk messing up other things which rely on it. The operation of displaying the history list - right click or extended left click for example - is for me a second order problem. I would suggest however that even here the list should not show sequences of repeated addresses. There is no point in seeing six similar addresses which all point to the same location within the same page. Just my thoughts Regards

If I was to write that what you wrote is common sense it would belittle it unfairly. I'll simply say I agree 100% and that sense does not seem to be all that common.