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Comment by dekatron | Hacker News Reader

New Reddit also messes with text selection with unnecessary JS crap. Wherever you select some text, they show an "Embed" button that prevents you from dragging the text to a new tab to perform a web search.

Thankfully this behaviour can be blocked with uBlock Origin by adding these rules:

  www.reddit.com##+js(aeld, mousedown, isSelectionOutOfRange)
  www.reddit.com##+js(aeld, mouseup, shouldShowButton)

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> dragging the text to a new tab to perform a web search

I had no idea that this worked. I don't "get" intentionally dragging if there's any alternative.

I feel like one of those people who tells people that frowning takes more muscles than smiling, but: dragging seems like it requires so many more muscles to be engaged than the keyboard shortcuts for copy/newtab/paste and then enter.

The way I see it, it's a feature that exists which some people use and prefer. Breaking it (intentionally or accidentally) just isn't something I want to see.

For sure, I'm not saying any browser should change this behavior. C-x M-c M-butterfly and all that.

Ha, different strokes for different folks I guess.

Usually when I'm reading something, my hands are off the keyboard and I use one hand to scroll with the mouse. In this scenario, it's so much easier to double-click to select a word and drag it to a new tab instead of reaching for the keyboard.

I totally get that. I had to check what my muscle memory would do in that situation. (Apparently) I select text, right-click, and then choose "search for <selected phrase>" from the context menu.

There isn't an alternative that lets you search for the text in a new tab while staying on the current tab.

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