Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Scroll hijacking
Raised as a usability problem by 33 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 30 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Hijacked scrolling makes reading content annoying and difficultUnreviewed
20132026- Scrolling is replaced by animation, so the page feels broken and loses its anchor2026-01-07
- Page scrolling breaks with PageDown, half-page keys, text browsers, and some devices2025-09-09
- Page scroll gets hijacked and stalls until the animation finishes, breaking expected scrolling2025-02-11
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 33 complaints
- Custom smooth scrolling runs at the wrong speed, making pages hard to scroll on touchpads2026-03-18
- Scrolling is replaced by animation, so the page feels broken and loses its anchor2026-01-07
- Page scrolling breaks with PageDown, half-page keys, text browsers, and some devices2025-09-09
- Page scroll gets hijacked and stalls until the animation finishes, breaking expected scrolling2025-02-11
- Page scrolling is hijacked, so the reader can't simply read what's already on screen2024-12-03
- Scrolling is disabled, so the only way to scroll is awkward text highlighting2024-11-29
- Scrolling triggers animations and sideways motion, so the page advances unpredictably instead of scrolling normally2024-11-29
- Page scrolling is hijacked, making the site hard to navigate on some devices2024-04-16
- Scroll wheel advances slides instead of scrolling the page, breaking expected input behaviour2024-04-16
- Scrolling feels slow and broken, as if the page is not responding normally2024-02-09
- Scroll-jacking pages are hard to read and confusing to navigate2023-11-15
- Scroll takeovers hijack normal page scrolling, making sites unpleasant to read2023-10-05
- Page forces section-by-section jumps instead of natural scrolling, feeling annoying and force-fed2023-10-04
- Sites override native scrolling, scroll amount and zoom, so pages don't respond as users expect2023-08-21
- Custom scroll behaviour makes the page unusable for the reader2023-08-21
- Arrow keys scroll unexpectedly differently, so user loses their place2023-01-31
- Scrolling and touch interactions behave unnaturally on mobile, which is infuriating2022-06-22
- Keyboard scrolling does nothing until the user first focuses the inner scrollable area2021-12-10
- Scroll hijacking is glitchy and makes the page painful to scroll2021-11-08
- Mouse wheel flick scrolls far past expected distance, breaking muscle memory2019-09-01
- Space, page up/down and arrow keys don't scroll predictably on many sites2019-07-31
- Scrolling behaviour is hijacked, making articles hard to read2019-07-12
- Scrolling moves the paragraph being read off the page, making the article hard to read2018-12-12
- Scrolling is hijacked by photo wipes, forcing the reader through slideshow-style sections2018-09-24
- Ads hijack page scrolling and lag the browser until scrolled past2017-06-08
- Page overrides users' scroll speed, making scrolling clunky and causing them to overshoot paragraphs2016-12-20
- Non-technical people get thrown by pages that hijack scrolling or give no sign that scrolling is needed2016-06-21
- Scrolling jerks in steps instead of moving smoothly, feeling neither smooth nor helpful2015-12-01
- Breaks default scrolling and overshoots the intended position on trackpads2015-11-16
- Sites that modify scrolling behave differently from the native scroll bar and wheel2015-09-30
- Hijacked scrolling makes content hard to read because scrolling is too annoying2015-08-31
- Pages jump to the nearest page when middle-click scrolling halfway2015-07-03
- Popups and fixed navigation constantly get in the way while reading, making content hard to follow2013-04-24