Mouse jumps to the top left of the browser screen on some websites

Comments

• tarquin@forum.vivaldi.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Not a surprise. Once one company does a thing to detect bots, other companies tend to follow suit. And many companies of the same type will share the same detection code package. It's not the normal Cloudflare stuff, or reCAPTCHA, or the incredibly frustrating "press and hold" from HUMAN that invariably fails repeatedly, so we should probably be grateful...

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• jefff1979@forum.vivaldi.net ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Thank you for getting back to me so quickly!

  I was worried that it could be used to do something malicious?

  Kind of like a modern Rick Roll type scenario (mouse jumping wildly on the screen) or a way to force someone click on something they never intended to click on?

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• tarquin@forum.vivaldi.net ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  @jefff1979 That particular website briefly uses "pointer lock". Meaning that when you move your mouse, it will not move the mouse cursor, and instead, the website can use your mouse movements for some other reason. Pointer lock is typically used by gaming websites, so you can move your mouse to make your character can look around, but the cursor never appears outside the edges of the website area, even if you move it far enough. When a website uses pointer lock, the browser shows a message telling you so, and that you can use Esc to exit it, except that website disables it again so quickly that the message gets hidden again.

  Who knows why that website is using it, but likely it is part of their bot detection (if you have a real mouse and pointer lock actually works, you are less likely to be a bot?). Personally, I find it very weird, it almost looks like they are trying to be malicious and hiding your mouse to irritate you, except that is a well known bank, not some malicious website. So rather than malicious, they are just being weird.

  Either way, when the website disables pointer lock again, this causes your system to move the mouse to some default location. Mine doesn't do that; for me it puts it right back where it was. But your computer/system chooses to move it.

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  • edwardp@forum.vivaldi.net ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    @tarquin I've also been seeing that reference to 'pointer lock' recently, but on a different bank's web site. The mouse pointer does not jump, but I see a message to press ESC.

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