Friday, September 12, 2008

Bugged by persistent Yahoo/Firefox browser navigation problem

Why couldn't Yahoo leave well enough alone? Come July, it forced users of its My Yahoo! home page to leave a perfectly good version of the page that had been in place for years for a new, upgraded version. After more than two months, however, it seems more like a forced downgrade than an upgrade.

The reason: a nagging navigation compatibility issue with your blogger's -- and many other folks' -- favorite browser, Firefox 3.0. Clicking on an article link in one of the My Yahoo! modules gets a user to the article fine and even remembers where on the page of the article one left off if one navigates back to the article from the My Yahoo! home page.

But back navigating out of the article back to the My Yahoo! home page takes the reader to the top of the My Yahoo! home page, losing the location of the module containing the article viewed. That requires scrolling up and down the My Yahoo! home page to visually locate the module.

Yahoo engineers say they're aware of the problem but point the finger of blame at Mozilla, Firefox's creator. Mozilla has confirmed the problem and has had an open "Bugzilla" on the issue since not long after Yahoo's "upgrade" but still no fix.

Since Mozilla can't seem to squash the irksome bug, seems to me the best solution here is for Yahoo to simply allow users to migrate back to the previous -- and bug free -- version of My Yahoo!

UPDATE 2/16/09: The problem still continues despite this 10/30/08 email from Yahoo! Customer Care:

We understand your concerns. We are working to resolve the technical issue with your browser not returning to the same position on the page when navigating back to it as soon as possible. While we cannot provide you with an accurate estimate of how long this resolution will take, you can rest assured that we hope to have the issue resolved soon. We appreciate your patience.

Patience, indeed. I imagine for many Firefox users out there, their patience has worn pretty thin by now after months and months with no fix.

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