I believe I've found a bug. I intermittently go back multiple pages when pressing back button. It frequently happens on youtube, and occasionally happens elsewhere.
In the picture, find my history where I started with the google search for "the chain" (please forgive me for having history from multiple tabs all mixed up). From here I went back and forth with the expected behavior a couple of times looking for the version I remembered. When I found the correct version, I settled in to listen to it in the background for a few songs minutes until it switched to gypsy which wasn't what I wanted to hear. Naturally enough, I went back once- straight from gypsy to the google search, skipping rhiannon and dreams and the chain. This is reflected on the rightclick drop down from the forward button- observe the three intervening pages which are in the history are not in the forward/back list.
In general, I frequently notice this unexpected and unwanted behavior when I go to youtube. I often go to the homepage, select a video, and then try to back to the homepage only to find it take me back to the blank tab, and when I try to forward it takes me to the video without the intervening homepage.
I seem to recall times when I experienced similar behavior, but cannot put a pin in when or where and cannot at this time, despite trying, reproduce it anywhere but youtube. I haven't tried downloading chrome or shudder using edge, mostly because fuck that, but also slightly because I am very lazy.
I also didn't notice this behavior on my laptop which had win10 and firefox (that is, before I switched to linux as a trial over there, but I digress). I tried to search for this error, but google search is terribly corrupt and difficult to get useful results beyond eg song names. I also searched this forum for "back pages" and "back page" and didn't find anything relevant going back a year.
Do I set my computer on fire for its disobedience, or...?
...websites can see my history?
No. The API is correctly named, but I can see how it could be misleading (and concerning!)
That API allows websites to programmatically go somewhere in your history. It can go forward, back, or to a specific point in your history, but it can't see what that history is, it can only go back 3 pages back or forward 2 pages for example. It doesn't actually know the history, it just navigates to those points in history. So Google isn't going to know that you were on Pornhub 3 pages ago, for example.
That's a relief >_>
So can I disable youtube's access to the history api? perhaps disable all access generally to see if that fixes it?
edit: The only thing I know about APIs is that reddit is shit now.
I don't believe that's possible. I think at one point there was a way to disable all access to the history API, but I don't believe that option exists anymore. Additionally, it would break a lot of websites.
Unfortunately I think this is probably a result of the way YouTube implements their "auto play next video" feature, and they are unlikely to change that.
An option might be using an alternative YouTube front-end, rather than using the YouTube site, but I don't have a lot of experience with those. (other people on here do though)