The gov.uk Design System calls this the "Exit a page quickly" pattern [1], with an associated component [2]. It can be activated by clicking the Shift key three times.

There's this nice blog [3] that explains why they chose Shift instead of other keys, and also gives a nice overview of the pattern.

[1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/exit-a-page-qu... [2] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/exit-this-pa... [3] https://beeps.website/blog/2024-10-09-why-govuk-exit-this-pa...

Some New Zealand Government / Business sites have a Javascript-based pop-up available called Shielded Site https://shielded.co.nz/

> If you are experiencing family violence, don't worry, the information within this pop-up won't appear in your browser's history.

Pages like Banks or Council websites have it in their footer, so people can lookup information without it appearing in their history

  (a class="quickBrowserEscape ..." target="_blank" href="https://www.google.ca/") Need to leave site for your safety? Quick Escape
  $('.quickBrowserEscape').on('click', function () {
      document.body.style.opacity = 0;
      document.title = 'New Tab';
      window.open('https://www.weather.gc.ca/canada_e.html', '_blank');
      window.location.replace($('.quickBrowserEscape').attr('href')); // removes current page session DOES NOT WORK IN IE
      return false;
  });

I've implemented quick exit/escape buttons for a few organisations over the years and have spent a bit of time thinking about the limitations.

This pattern is definitely better than most and it is refreshing seeing they put some resources into it. In my professional experience, organisations often chose the "a link to another site like google is fine" option to save money and time while still getting to boast about their security culture.

One thing I have not found much research on however, but would love to hear about, is the effect of these kinds of patterns on the user's speed and choice of actions and how that effects outcomes. What I mean by that is, say someone is visiting the site on their phone and an adversary walks into the room. Most people these days know the fastest way to leave a page at short notice - maybe the home button/gesture, maybe swipe to another open app. Does having a big red button that introduces a new choice help them, or add to the cognitive bandwidth needed to handle the situation?

Remember, by definition the type of situations that this component is intended to help with are going to be stressful and likely have little to no warning; the person is going to walk in the room and the user has moments to act.

What is going to lead to measurably better outcomes; a big red button that the user needs to read, understand and move their finger/hand to, or their own knowledge of their own device's most efficient escape mechanisms?

This isn't meant as a criticism of the component. I am just genuinely curious as to what the best tool to assist folks in this situation is? We are talking about real people with real fears and the possibility of very bad outcomes.

In New Zealand we have a Shielded Site popup at the bottom of all government websites, and many popular privately owned websites too.

E.g. go to govt.nz and scroll to the bottom. There's a little icon of a computer that opens a popup element inside the page.

It gives information for victims of domestic violence and abuse.

PSA:

If you ever call 911 and order a pizza, many of the dispatchers are trained to recognize that as "I am in danger and I need an officer to come to the house immediately. The person threatening me can hear this conversation."

It works b/c it gives you a plausible reason to give your address to someone over the phone and they can give you an ETA which is also plausible of "the pizza guy will be here in 20 minutes" etc.

Brilliant feature, well done Vancouver PD. A very serious boss mode. Lotus 1-2-3 wouldn't look quite right here but weather.ca is plausible.

The Trevor Project (LGBTQ support/suicide prevention site) has the same thing, triggered by a hotkey (press ESC three times). https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

While this is a great idea that no-doubt does help some people, beware this doesn't clean up all traces in the browser, and private/incognito is better at not keeping a history.

For example, there is a favicon cache in firefox.

If you query favicons.sqlite in your profile directory:

    select * from moz_pages_w_icons order by id desc limit 10;

It only replaces the current page, and VPD is not a single-page app. So if you've been clicking around to find something, the previous pages will still be in your history.

If you need to hide your browsing history from an abusive partner, it would be more secure to use incognito mode and hit Alt+F4 when you need to escape. Unfortunately, Chrome renders incognito windows in dark mode by default. If you're normally on light mode, the transition is extremely conspicuous. Edge and Firefox do the same. It's as if all browser vendors have colluded to make it difficult to browse in secret.

I built something similar at https://ictsos.org, which is a human trafficking nonprofit.

But in testing, I found that history deletion was not possible everywhere. I opted to open a new tab with a harmless google search, so that the history would not exist in that tab. Meanwhile, the original tab is also redirected to a new page.

I'm going to investigate what the UK site did to look for any potential improvements I can make.

Raises the question of whether browsers should have a [Replace Page, Erase Domain from History] button and hotkey.

This is a good idea that deserves to be across all Police, Help, Domestic Violence, 911, Suicide Hotline, etc sites across all countries.

Reminds me of the Australian domestic violence website. It also has an app that quick escapes to a weather app.

https://1800respect.org.au/sunny

A website can wipe itself from history? That seems like a major security issue.

reminds me of boss mode in leisure suit larry 1

I like that this treats as a UX problem not just a technical one. The challenge is making sure people know the feature exists before they need it. An escape mechanism isn't very useful if you only discover it after you're already in a stressful situation.

Isn't this exactly why browsers implemented "private mode"?

Why don't they inform users about how to properly use private mode, which works with any website, instead of rolling their own solution, which the user has to learn just for that one website?

Reminds me of the boss key in a lot of 80's games.

this is awesome. i had a similar idea for a women's shelter but this approach is 1000% better and less complicated than mine. bravo!

https://sbaproject.org/ has the same thing. Sometimes visiting a website can have very real and very violent consequences. Thankfully these folks know what they are doing.

Does this actually remove from history? The feature says escape, but the back button and history still show the page (Firefox on Android).

It doesn't wipe from history on Vanadium GrapheneOS (likely same on Android Chrome). It does change its icon to Google and open Google and weather websites.

Isn't that what "incognito mode" is for? Why should random websites have the capability to wipe themselves from history?

This type of button is very common on websites for women of domestic abuse.

Just hope this does not get flagged as spam by google and demotes useful sites, so they are not found to begin with, which would make this useful feature a net negative.

Because same methods can also used by bad actors for deceptive and spammy actions and we are not allowed to have nice things ever.

Therefore Google has something against messing with browser navigation state back button behavior and history such actions usually got demoted in rankings.

I think it's also fine for all sort of marginal and ephemeral actions that should not spam the browser history, like panning over a map or how far you scrolled down a page, but want to end up back there on reload and shares possibly.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/04/back-butto...

Yeah and it crashes my browser xDDD

Maybe just use an incognito window?

But when the Vancouver PD are beating you up, you wont have time to load the page to locate the quick escape button.

the favicon isn't removed

[flagged]

Aye, the world we live in.

The site (vpd.ca) remains in history, just with the name replaced with "New Tab", which the script does just before redirecting. I would be very upset if browsers allowed sites to mess with history.

Not a bad idea, except that *WEB PAGES SHOULD HAVE NEITHER ANY ACCESS TO NOR ANY CONTROL OVER THE HISTORY, PERIOD, AND SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BEAT THE MORONS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS "WEB PLATFORM" BULLSHIT SENSELESS*.

It's good that a police department has chosen to do this with the misfeature, but the fact that there are non-abusive applications is not an excuse.

its too bad they do very little fighting actual crime same with montreal pd probably two least effective and disliked departments in all of canada