Comment 99 for bug 60995

(In reply to comment #62)
> Isn't the solution to the accidental data loss problem to keep form data in
> history?

Something like that, yes. I suspect there's a security consideration in not saving the form data for pages that aren't currently visible. Shared computers and so on.

> If you accidentally pressed back when filling out a form, you could
> press forward to return without losing form data. Actions should be reversible,
> regardless of whether you press backspace or the back button.

Reversibility is definitely good. I think a prompt might be a better idea, though. "You have unsaved changes on this page. Are you sure you want to navigate away from it?" Then this would apply to any action that navigates away from a page, including Backspace, Ctrl+W, closing Firefox, and so on. This is already the case in Google apps (programmed in javascript?), but should be the default behavior for any page with an edited form.