I think that is because some "pages" are really full screen modals. So the back button does take you back to the previous page, but it looks like you went back two pages (closes modal + goes back). I don't spend too much time in the Azure portal but this behavior is rampant in the Entra admin center.

> full screen modals

Thanks. I never imagined this is a thing, it's an useful addition to my mental model of software components, to explain why back button on web behaves in weird ways for some apps.

But it sure does sound like a dumb pattern on the web.

While we’re making sure that modals are recorded in history so that you can close them with the back button on mobile (e.g. https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/shallow-routing), MSFT can’t be bothered. But when it comes to abusing the very same history API to grab the user’s attention for a bit longer...

Having used Azure I believe that this is the result of pure, distilled incompetence rather than malicious intent.

This maybe true, but I don’t think a company as large as Microsoft can get a pass. There is no excuse for them not being able to handle a back button properly. They are worth trillions of dollars, run some of the biggest sites on the internet, and defined much of how the web worked for an entire computing era.

They should have their feet held to the fire on this.

Hear, hear.

I mention it not to excuse Microsoft's sins, but to the contrary to point out that malicious intent as a criteria isn't such a good idea after all, when there are such obvious cases of incompetence and malice being practically indistinguishable.