Using Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Samsungs ‘Internet’ app, and every other browser I’ve used/tried on Android:
I’ll go to select some text on a page by long-pressing on it and it’ll select the word I’m touching as well as expand that selection to a somewhat random amount of additional text (usually not following any structure such as selecting a whole sentence for example).
I’ll then go to adjust that selection by grabbing one of the two tabs on either end of it and the moment I do, the opposite tab jumps to a completely random spot on the page vastly expanding the selection, then the whole page scrolls to an entirely different section; Leaving me holding one end of the selection unable to see what was originally selected. I can’t scroll to where I was, and If I let go and just click copy I’ve now copied 90%of the page to my clipboard… Attempting to modify the selection any further yields the same lack of control and just makes things worse.
This doesn’t happen everywhere, but I get these results far far more often than a successful copy+paste. Like just now trying to copy an address from a local transit guide.
I end up having to drop the paste into a notepad app, reselect the bit I actually wanted (if it even made it into the pile of garbage I was forced to grab) then delete the note once I’m done.
This is fucking stupid and I hate it. Rant over. Thank you for listening.
/edit: I don’t have the power to pin a comment, but d3Xt3r@lemmy.world has a great solution: Use the rectangle select tool in androids ‘Edge Panel’ (must be enabled in settings), then press the ‘T’ button to copy text from the area you’ve selected.
All I can say is that it is kinda cathartic that someone other than me is experiencing this nightmare.
Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.
Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.
On android, you can still select text on those pages from the switch apps screen (swipe up from the bottom, hold, then release on Pixels). Found that workaround on accident lol
Sometimes it’s intentional. I have seen both of these cases as well:
- If you copy text, the page secretly adds more text at the end saying "To read more, visit " so when you paste the text, it shares the article too.
- Some pages seem to interfere with selecting text on purpose. Like once again, they don’t want you copying text, they want you to link the whole article.
Gotta get more impressions, right?
Most of those (ignoring 1) are browser problems, not mobile problems. The browser’s handle it fine on desktops (most of the time)
I guess it’s mostly the mobile size sites doing extreme styling to get thinfs to fit (partly 2). I guess next time I find a bad site I should try it on a shrunk desktop window.
You aren’t exactly wrong, but nearly all of this (besides the precision point) somewhat applies on desktop as well. I think op has a point that what’s happening on android is weird because most browsers don’t flip out when you try and select text on desktop. I don’t think the pointer method’s lack of precision explains it fully.
TBH my biggest frustration with it is the opposite side of the selection moving (sometimes quite drastically) while I’m trying to move one side:
Select text from point A to point B, grab point B to move it and point A suddenly moves while you’re holding B.
Next up is the page moving while I’m holding one of those points. The page scrolls suddenly to a random spot, but I can’t manually scroll at all let alone scroll back to where I was. (trying by dragged to the top/bottom of the screen, the page doesn’t move)
These two together make text selection a complete lost cause wherever this problem shows up.
I think it’s a pixel thing, but I get around this by going into the app background thing then press “select” so the phone can treat the screen as an image with text and just list out the text without any website or browser shenanigans interfering.
Yep, just use the rectangular selection from the edge panel and you can save it as a screenshot or extract the text.
So it’s not just my phone? It is android? I’ve had this shit only on my current phone so I thought it was just the hardware. It’s not just websites or browsers; it’s every fucking app, because the selection thing is handled by the OS.
By God is it infuriating that something so simple straight up doesn’t fucking work in 2023.
I’ve had this issue for years across several devices.
I have however mostly used Samsung devices so I’m not sure if other brands have the same issue. Probably, but I can’t say for sure.
I’ve had this LG thing (V6 Dual Screen) for years; I don’t upgrade until my stuff is literally broken. Previous phone was a Galaxy S4. I didn’t have the problem when it was new, which is why I figured it was hardware just wearing out. But it could have also just been one of the updates to Android itself.
My last two upgrades have been because of dieing parts. Degrading batteries that I can’t be bothered to have replaced and a wifi adapter that just quit working altogether.
I miss my Moto Z2 Play with the moto mods. Extra battery, external speakers, even a fully functional projector to share the screen. That thing was the shit.
I really hate that android tries to expand the selection to whatever it thinks is relevant, I don’t need selection to be “smart” just let me select what I want to select
