I don't think it's on purpose, just a naïve consequence of using the URL for state.

Pretty common.

Should be replacing state in the history stack rather than pushing a new state.

Agreed, was very annoying, please don’t misuse history like that :(

Right-click the back button?

Browsers only display the last 10 - 20 states, so if you've been clicking around it quickly fills up with just this page.

Would be nice if browsers would group back button entries by: 1. same url except hash 2. same domain 3. rest

Safari does this

Where’s the right click button on my phone

Long press

I find the back/forward buttons useful for undoing/redoing changes, so that I don't lose past cool designs / settings, though I can see it being a controversial approach.

That said, there were definitely way too much history generated when typing into a text field. I just implemented a planned compromise, where you only get a history event when changing a "committed" text field (meaning you previously defocused the field). Hopefully this is the best of both worlds!