Chrome has had scroll restoration support since 2015. You can even control it: history.scrollRestoration = 'manual'. But if you've ever tried to reliably restore a user's position on a React or Next.js app, you know it doesn't work the way you'd expect.
Here's what breaks, why it breaks, and how a browser extension can sidestep the entire problem.
What the Browser Actually Does
The default behavior is history.scrollRestoration = 'auto'. When you navigate back to a page, the browser tries to scroll to where you were.
This works fine for static pages. It falls apart for:
