Prevent BACKSPACE from navigating back with jQuery (Like Google's Homepage)

Question

Notice while on Google\'s homepage, with no focus on any element, pressing BACKSPACE will put the focus into the search toolbar instead of navigating back.

How can I

Answer 1

This is old, but these answers will still allow you to backspace and navigate when focused on a radio button. You will want to filter the input type as well. Credit to all answers above for this:

$(document).on("keydown", function (e) {
    if (e.which === 8 && !$(e.target).is("input[type='text']:not([readonly]), textarea")) {
        e.preventDefault();
    }
});