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.

  • MasterBuilder@lemmy.oneEnglish
    90·
    1 year ago

    All I can say is that it is kinda cathartic that someone other than me is experiencing this nightmare.

    Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.

    • Dee@lemmings.worldEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.

      On android, you can still select text on those pages from the switch apps screen (swipe up from the bottom, hold, then release on Pixels). Found that workaround on accident lol

    • Bebo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Seriously, I thought I was the only person clumsy/stupid enough to mess up on text selection.

    • Aa!@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Sometimes it’s intentional. I have seen both of these cases as well:

      • If you copy text, the page secretly adds more text at the end saying "To read more, visit " so when you paste the text, it shares the article too.
      • Some pages seem to interfere with selecting text on purpose. Like once again, they don’t want you copying text, they want you to link the whole article.

      Gotta get more impressions, right?

    • Nighed@sffa.communityEnglish
      3·
      1 year 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.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      2·
      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.

    • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.orgEnglish
      2·
      1 year 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.

  • LostDeer@infosec.pubEnglish
    27·
    1 year ago

    I think it’s a pixel thing, but I get around this by going into the app background thing then press “select” so the phone can treat the screen as an image with text and just list out the text without any website or browser shenanigans interfering.

  • kib48@lemm.eeEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    I really hate that android tries to expand the selection to whatever it thinks is relevant, I don’t need selection to be “smart” just let me select what I want to select

  • sonnenzeit@feddit.deEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Yean, I hate it too. The difference to selecting text on a desktop system is night and day especially because with a proper mouse you can shift click the desired start and end points and don’t even have to drag.

    I’ve found that zooming in generally makes it more precise but that doesn’t help if it means that you now need to scroll the screen because of the zoom. For some reason drag-selecting text upwards also yields better results for me than downwards.

    Another trick is to request the desktop version of a page instead of the mobile version and see if it’s easier there.

  • ReMikeAble@beehaw.orgEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    I try not to think too little of myself, but I really did think this was a just me sort of thing. Thank you for so eloquently expressing the experience!

  • db2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    It happens to me in a lot of apps too, even Liftoff. Is it maybe related to the keyboard app? Which one do you use?

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Interesting thought: I’ve been using SwiftKey for probably 10 years now.

      I’m gonna have a play with some others and see if that changes anything. Not sure it will, but worth a look.

      /edit: Sigh. Nope. Same results with Samsungs built in keyboard and with GBoard.

      The keyboard doesn’t pop up during text selection so I don’t think that’s having an effect.

      • db2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I thought maybe it was related by way of the clipboard. Guess not.

      • gigachad@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I used AOSP keyboard for a very long time and now Simple Keyboard, it experience this on both. I think this may be an Android thing.

  • jayandp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    At this point I just let Android copy whatever, as long as it contains what I want, and then I use the clipboard edit tool that pops up to delete everything I don’t want. Extra steps, but way less fiddly.

  • Wahots@pawb.socialEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    This, and also putting the cursor into a wall of text, such as between two closed parentheses () in the middle of a block of text. It’s always off by 1-4 characters. I KNOW it’s fixable because WindowsPhone fixed this in the 2015 era with a six-way keyboard nipple embedded in it’s keyboard. It never messed up. I miss it everyday…

  • Crowd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Try using universal copy. It’s an app on the play store that lets you select paragraphs or lines and then modify them (Check the press and hold behavior)

  • op12@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    One thing that might be Pixel-specific is it lets you adjust the selection after the initial copy, prior to pasting it elsewhere. One thing that may be more universal (maybe?) is copying from the recent apps screen (the one that shows when you swipe up partway and see all open apps) uses OCR so you can copy from anything, including apps that have normally blocked that functionality.