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.
Try using universal copy. It’s an app on the play store that lets you select paragraphs or lines and then modify them (Check the press and hold behavior)
This, and also putting the cursor into a wall of text, such as between two closed parentheses () in the middle of a block of text. It’s always off by 1-4 characters. I KNOW it’s fixable because WindowsPhone fixed this in the 2015 era with a six-way keyboard nipple embedded in it’s keyboard. It never messed up. I miss it everyday…
At this point I just let Android copy whatever, as long as it contains what I want, and then I use the clipboard edit tool that pops up to delete everything I don’t want. Extra steps, but way less fiddly.
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
Because websites are optimized for dummies who can’t copy paste.
