[cjhermes]

Just converted from IPhone to 920. The thing I use most is the browser. I'm finding it very painful because:

There are just no BACK and FORWARD buttons.

I understand that you can hit back bottom left if you linked forward from a browser page, but not if you reopened the browser, it will take you to where you are last (homesecreen or wherever).
I've found javascript that allows a 'forward' tool to be put in your favourites, but it's a long process to get there.

Is there any understanding of why the phone version operates so much differently than desktop? Is there any chance it will be fixed? I heard that older Windows Phone OS's had a forward button.

Are there other browsers that can be used integrate well with the OS? Any other solutions? Thanks.

[brmiller1976]

Just go to "recent pages" and tap the page you want to go to. It holds both "previous" and "forward" pages, in sequence, in a list. Much easier to tap the page you want than hit "back" eleven times, right? ;)

[cjhermes]

thanks for the reply. I agree if that's what I want to go way back or forward. But show me a desktop browser that doesn't have a forward and back button,. I don't think it's just for dumb people that don't know there's a history. Doesn't seem there's going to be another browser allowed in according to my research. So hopefully, from my point of view, there's enough disenchantment and they fix'r up. I'm not hopeful.

Aside rant, what the heck is with Bing getting it's very own button. It doesn't even search the device. I mean, search the internet has it's very own special button, outside of Explorer, but it's not designed for heavy browsing. Weird set of priorities to me. I guess they want to push Bing and make money off it. No money to be made on a forward button. Bummer.

[cjhermes]

Final thought: they could have an option for the address bar button to be a history button (amongst a larger set that others might find useful) it would be good. It is very useful for me as the tab button. If they had a couple of addressable buttons, and a good set of options for choices, including forward and back, that would be swell.

[onedrummer2401]

Final thought: they could have an option for the address bar button to be a history button (amongst a larger set that others might find useful) it would be good. It is very useful for me as the tab button. If they had a couple of addressable buttons, and a good set of options for choices, including forward and back, that would be swell.

For me, I'd rather the bottom row be all buttons, including the address bar. There should be a favorites, tabs, back, forward and address bar button. The layout and which buttons should be customizable. I also want it to be able to get pushed out of the way for fullscreen browsing. Making the address bar go away to a button would clear up more space and would be easy to access. You have to tap the address bar anyway to do anything with it.

[Guzzler3]

One more thing: I need to create sub-folders in Favorites.

This might be a deal breaker for me :@

[brmiller1976]

Forward and back buttons are a legacy control, much like static icons or command lines. Microsoft's getting rid of them even in Windows 8 on PCs.

[Winning Guy]

The Search button was made standard on all WP devices with the intention of it having contextual search ability, like what you see in Windows 8. They tried it at first with WP7, but it was inconsistent in how it performed app to app. So they did away with the contextual search with the idea that they'd work on it and bring it back when it's done.

[paulm187]

I wish MS will update the WP8 browser and align it more with the Win8 Modern UI browser where you can swipe forwards or backwards.

[Winning Guy]

I wish MS will update the WP8 browser and align it more with the Win8 Modern UI browser where you can swipe forwards or backwards.

That would be nice. I wouldn't be surprised to see that function appear after an update or two.

[eric12341]

There all cleaned up, let's not bait and antagonize each other into an argument. With all being said I find the "recent" feature to be much more efficient than hitting back or forward, especially when used in conjunction with tabbed browsing.