Preventing the touch default

Last major update on 19 February 2014.

On this page I present the results of my research into preventing the default of touch actions.

Theory is clear, and most important browsers follow it. The default of all actions is prevented when you return false (or call preventDefault()) ontouchstart. The touchmove event is trickier: only scroll and pinch-zoom are prevented when you return false on that event. This makes sense, since these two actions are the only ones that actually require the user’s touch to move.

The proxy browsers, Symbian Anna, and Puffin do not support the touch events and are untestable. IE10 supports the pointer events, but does nothing when you return false (or call preventDefault(); or set returnValue). This likely has something to do with the fact that you prevent the defaults in CSS (-ms-touch-action).

Touchstart prevented

Are the following actions prevented if you prevent the default ontouchstart?

	iOS	Android	Chrome	Opera	BlackBerry	Nokia	UC	Puffin	Nintendo	Dolphin	Tizen	One	IE 10	Firefox
6	7	2	4	28	31	Mini	Mob 12	Mob 18	6	7	10	Xpress	MeeGo	Anna	Belle	Mini	8	9	OS	And
Tap (click)	Yes	Yes	See below	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Yes	No	-	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes

Event cascade	Yes	Yes	See below	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Almost	No	-	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Android 4 and One fire mouseover and mousemove. They always come before touchstart, so they aren’t cancelled by the touchstart. UC 8 fires the mouseup event, but none of the others.
Double tap	Yes	Yes	See below	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes

Scroll	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	No	Yes	-	Yes	No	Yes	Unreliable
Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the scrolling, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC. Vertical scrolling more dangerous than horizontal.
Pinch-zoom	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	No	Yes	-	No	-	No	-	No	Yes	-	Yes	No	Yes	Unreliable
Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the pinch-zoom, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC.
Touchhold	Yes	Yes	See below	Yes	-	Yes	No	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Yes	-	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes

iOS

Android

Chrome

Opera

BlackBerry

Nokia

Puffin

Nintendo

Dolphin

Tizen

One

IE 10

Firefox

Mini

Mob 12

Mob 18

Xpress

MeeGo

Anna

Belle

Mini

And

Tap (click)

Yes

See below

Yes

Event cascade

Yes

See below

Yes

Almost

Yes

Android 4 and One fire mouseover and mousemove. They always come before touchstart, so they aren’t cancelled by the touchstart.
UC 8 fires the mouseup event, but none of the others.

Double tap

Yes

See below

Yes

Scroll

Yes

Unreliable

Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the scrolling, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC. Vertical scrolling more dangerous than horizontal.

Pinch-zoom

Yes

Unreliable

Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the pinch-zoom, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC.

Touchhold

Yes

See below

Yes

Touchmove prevented

Are the following actions prevented if you prevent the default ontouchmove?

	iOS	Android	Chrome	Opera	BlackBerry	Nokia	UC	Puffin	Nintendo	Dolphin	Tizen	One	IE 10	Firefox
6	7	2	4	28	31	Mini	Mob 12	Mob 18	6	7	10	Xpress	MeeGo	Anna	Belle	Mini	8	9	OS	And
Tap (click)	No	No	No	-	No	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	No	No

Event cascade	No	No	No	-	No	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	No	No
Android 4: Xiaomi and Huawei usually fire an extra mouseout and mousemove event before the regular cascade.
Double tap	No	No	No	-	No	Yes	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	No	No

Scroll	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Yes	-	Incomplete	Yes	No	No	Unreliable
The HTC Android 4 does not prevent scrolling. Nintendo allows one single scroll per action, but not more. So the scrolling is not smooth and ends abruptly. This is likely a bug. Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the scrolling, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC. Vertical scrolling more dangerous than horizontal.
Pinch-zoom	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	-	Incomplete	Yes	No	Yes	-	Yes	-	No	-	Yes	-	Yes	No	No	Unreliable
The HTC Android 4 does not prevent pinch-zooming. Opera 12.10 Android prevents pinch-zooming; 12.00 on Symbian doesn’t. Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the pinch-zoom, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC.
Touchhold	No	No	No	-	No	No	Yes	-	No	-	No	-	No	-	No	No	No

iOS

Android

Chrome

Opera

BlackBerry

Nokia

Puffin

Nintendo

Dolphin

Tizen

One

IE 10

Firefox

Mini

Mob 12

Mob 18

Xpress

MeeGo

Anna

Belle

Mini

And

Tap (click)

Event cascade

Android 4: Xiaomi and Huawei usually fire an extra mouseout and mousemove event before the regular cascade.

Double tap

Yes

Scroll

Yes

Incomplete

Yes

Unreliable

The HTC Android 4 does not prevent scrolling.
Nintendo allows one single scroll per action, but not more. So the scrolling is not smooth and ends abruptly. This is likely a bug.
Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the scrolling, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC. Vertical scrolling more dangerous than horizontal.

Pinch-zoom

Yes

Incomplete

Yes

Unreliable

The HTC Android 4 does not prevent pinch-zooming.
Opera 12.10 Android prevents pinch-zooming; 12.00 on Symbian doesn’t.
Firefox 25 sometimes suppresses the pinch-zoom, but not always. Worse on the Pocket than on the HTC.

Touchhold

Yes

Android 4

This table is specifically for Android 4, and mostly about the touchstart event. In general, Android 4 does not prevent the default ontouchmove. Exceptions: scroll and pinch-zoom.

	Xiaomi	Huawei	Note I	Sony	LG	S3	HTC
Tap (click) touchstart only	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Event cascade touchstart only	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
General note: Android 4 always fires mouseover and mousemove, since they occur before touchstart. This is not counted as a bug.
Double tap touchstart only	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes

Scroll touchstart and touchmove	Almost	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Incomplete
Xiaomi prevents the default, but nonetheless allows the scrolling of the browser interface. The HTC does not prevent the default ontouchmove.
Pinch-zoom touchstart and touchmove	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Incomplete
The HTC does not prevent the default ontouchmove.
Touchhold touchstart only	Sort of	Sort of	Yes	Sort of	Sort of	Sort of	Yes
Normally, the element is selected (colour change), the phone may vibrate, and a word is selected. All devices except for Note I and HTC select the element, but do not vibrate or select a word. The Note I doesn’t even select the element. The HTC does, but removes the selection quickly.

Xiaomi

Huawei

Note I

Sony

HTC

Tap (click)

touchstart only

Yes

Event cascade

touchstart only

Yes

General note: Android 4 always fires mouseover and mousemove, since they occur before touchstart. This is not counted as a bug.

Double tap

touchstart only

Yes

Scroll

touchstart and touchmove

Almost

Yes

Incomplete

Xiaomi prevents the default, but nonetheless allows the scrolling of the browser interface.
The HTC does not prevent the default ontouchmove.

Pinch-zoom

touchstart and touchmove

Yes

Incomplete

The HTC does not prevent the default ontouchmove.

Touchhold

touchstart only

Sort of

Yes

Sort of

Yes

Normally, the element is selected (colour change), the phone may vibrate, and a word is selected. All devices except for Note I and HTC select the element, but do not vibrate or select a word.

The Note I doesn’t even select the element. The HTC does, but removes the selection quickly.

Browsers

iOS 6

WebKit 536

Default browser on iPhone 4S with iOS 6.1.3

iOS 7

WebKit 537

Default browser on iPad 2 with iOS 7.0.4

Android 2

WebKit 533

Default browser on HTC Legend, Android 2.2

Default browser on Samsung Galaxy Pocket, Android 2.3.6

Android 4

WebKit 534

Default browser on Xiaomi M2, Android 4.1.1

Default browser on Huawei C8813, Android 4.1.1

Default browser on Samsung Galaxy Note I, Android 4.1.2

Default browser on Sony Xperia S, Android 4.1.2

Default browser on LG L5, Android 4.1.2

Default browser on Samsung Galaxy S3, Android 4.1.2

Default browser on HTC One X, Android 4.2.2

Chrome 28

Blink

Default browser on Samsung Galaxy S4, Android 4.3

It will be interesting to see if Samsung’s purported Chrome 18 is really the real Chrome 28.

Chrome 31

Blink

On HTC One X, Android 4.2.2

On Nexus 7, Android 4.4

Opera Mini

Presto

Proxy browser

7.0.5 on iPad 2, iOS 7.0.3

7.1 on BlackBerry 9800 (OS6)

7.1 on Nokia PureView 808, Symbian Belle

7.5 on Samsung Galaxy Note I, Android 4.0.3

Opera Mobile 12

Presto

12.00 on Nokia E7, Symbian Anna

12.10 on Samsung Galaxy Pocket, Android 2.3.6

Opera Mobile 18

Blink (Chromium version not given; likely 30 or 31)

On Sony Xperia S, Android 4.1.2

On Nexus 7, Android 4.3

BlackBerry 6

WebKit 534

Default browser on BB Torch 9800 (OS6)

BlackBerry 7

WebKit 534

Default browser on BB Torch 9810 (OS7)

BlackBerry 10

WebKit 537

Default browser on BlackBerry Z10 (BB OS 10.1)

This device has 1GB of internal memory instead of the customary 2GB, which may matter in performance tests.

Xpress

Gecko 20100401; this version was used for some Firefoxes from 3 to 4.

Proxy browser

3.9 on the Nokia Asha 311, S40.

This browser used to be called Ovi. Nokia developed it because it saw how succesful Opera was on Nokia’s own devices.

MeeGo

WebKit 534

Default browser on Nokia N950, MeeGo Harmattan 1.2

Originally slated as Symbian’s successor, MeeGo was ousted in favour of Windows Phone. Some devices were sold, however, and a Finnish company is trying to re-start MeeGo under the name Sailfish. Also, rumour has it that Nokia is quietly hiring back ex-MeeGo people, so a Nokia-based restart is not entirely impossible.

Anna

WebKit 533

Default browser (7.3) on Nokia E7, Symbian Anna

The next-to-last Symbian build. I don’t think it was the prime Symbian build for long; it was replaced by Belle fairly soon. But it’ll be in some people’s pockets.

Belle

WebKit 535

Default browser (8.3) on Nokia PureView 808, Symbian Belle FP2

The most recent Symbian build.

UC Mini

Gecko; don’t know version number

Proxy browser

8.8 on HTC One X, Android 4.2.2

WebKit 534

UC 8.5.1 on Xiaomi M2 (Android 4.1.1)

UC 9.2.3 on Huawei C8813 (Android 4.1.1)

The largest Chinese browser. This is the full variant, not the proxy. These browsers were pre-installed (next to Android WebKit; don’t ask me why).

Puffin

WebKit 534

2.1 Free Edition on Samsung Galaxy Note, Android 4.0.3

Claims to be Chrome 11

Nintendo

WebKit 536

Nintendo browser 2.0.0 on Wii U 4.0.0

Supposed to be based on NetFront.

Dolphin

WebKit 534

Dolphin 10 with JetPack on Sony Xperia S, Android 4.1.2.

Independent full browser for Android, as long as you install both Dolphin 10 and the Jetpack extension.

QQ One

WebKit 533

4.2.2 on HTC One X, Android 4.2.2

This is the downloadable, international browser TenCent created.

Tizen

WebKit 537

Default browser on Ref.Device-PQ by Samsung; Tizen 2.2

Tizen is an OS jointly being developed by Samsung and Intel. I expect Samsung to start producing devices this year, and it will get a few percent of market share.

IE10

Trident

Default browser on Nokia Lumia 820, Windows Phone 8.0.

Firefox OS

Gecko 18

Geekphone/Telefónica (Peak and/or qcom); Boot2Gecko 1.0.1.0-prerelease

Default browser on ZTE Open, FF OS 1.0.0802

The ZTE Open will get an upgrade to 1.1 pretty soon.

Firefox Android

Gecko 25

25 on Samsung Galaxy Pocket, Android 2.3.6

25 on HTC One X, Android 4.2.2