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 [email protected] 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.

  • Darkassassin07OP
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    1 year ago

    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.