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Don't hijack my mouse pointer

https://ruky.me/dont-hijack-my-pointer/
25•rukshn•1h ago

Comments

frereubu•1h ago
> For example it can be as simple as this, to something completely unacceptable as this.

I can't see any difference between these in terms of UX - I got annoyed just looking at them.

spacebacon•1h ago
Unless it’s Ratty
Bender•1h ago
ublock may be able to help, perhaps something like

    ##*:style(cursor: auto !important)
Does anyone have a site to test it on?
shrx•24m ago
Try https://dmnsgn.me/blog/from-glsl-to-wgsl-the-future-of-shade...
Bender•12m ago
Looks like that one changes the pointer with javascript. I guess the only options are to not permit Javascript which breaks the site or use Reader View. Cntrl+Alt+R in Firefox.
timw4mail•49m ago
Wait...what year is it again?
smallmancontrov•20m ago
Wake up babe, it's 1999 and you need to install Yahoo Toolbar into Netscape Navigator to avoid the dreaded Y2K bug!
venzaspa•45m ago
Not nearly as nasty as scroll hijacking so the page moves at a different speed than what I've instructed it to move at. Or pastejacking - when you're trying to copy a piece of text and the page makes you grab an entirely different string to what you'd highlighted and selected.
newscombinatorY•34m ago
I'd add preventing text selection, right-clicking or pasting from the clipboard to the list. I hate when websites do that.
stvltvs•18m ago
Especially egregious when preventing pasting into a password field. Do they want me to have a weak password so that I can manually type it in instead of pasting it from a password manager?
smallmancontrov•27m ago
Focus-stealing, too! Especially bad with Microsoft products. I can picture exactly what happened: a thousand complaints of "I lost a window in the heaping mess of open work on my desktop" each turned into a ticket to add Just One More focus steal until the first minute of a Microsoft-powered desktop's existence is various projects fighting in a brawl to repeatedly steal focus from one another.

It was a major win for the internet that it took this power away from the application layer.

datenyan•16m ago
I have often thought about trying to figure out whatever Win32 API is responsible for focus stealing and neuter it down to something akin to

  void steal_focus_when_user_is_least_expecting() {
    // stub, much better :)
  }
It is the single most frustrating desktop computing experience.
Theodores•39m ago
I like it how the author says how busy he is and how he finally snatched a few minutes out of this busy life to bring us this edict: don't hijack mouse pointers, or else!

What next, don't use blink or marquee elements?

Or else!

Standard issue cursors are not that great in all environments, sometimes making the cursor massively big or doing other daft things to it make sense. It is all about context and golden rules don't help.

teddyh•28m ago
> For example, making it slightly tilted because it was easier to draw on old screens.

No. Some older systems actually had straight pointers. The slightly tilted design is, I assume, a result of wanting to point to something while still being able to see what is to the immediate left of the pointer; useful for left-to-right text.

xnx•27m ago
I can count on my left hand the number of acceptable times to change my cursor motion or shape. This is one: https://neal.fun/cursor-camp/
chrismorgan•23m ago
Your choice of wording made me wonder if you have a different number of fingers on left and right hands.
noiv•13m ago
Lol, once made a game hiding mouse pointer temporarely when users did not behave :)
clickety_clack•7m ago
I remember when the internet was wild, young and fun, and this was something people did all the time. If you’re building Salesforce or SAP or Microsoft Word you should avoid it, but if you’re making a fun and weird website you should go to town.

Learning Software Architecture

https://matklad.github.io/2026/05/12/software-architecture.html
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Don't hijack my mouse pointer

https://ruky.me/dont-hijack-my-pointer/
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