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.

    • Nighed@sffa.communityEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.orgEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months 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.