easier than having to append a query string on every url
You might be thinking of a different thing. The “?exclude=” URL hack is done if you go into the settings and select “Exclude tag from start page”. Meanwhile the filter that’s applied in the “…” menu on the browse page is different, that’s a custom thing that’s done by Mitch on the client-side. Unlike the URL hack it can handle multiple exclusions at once, but yes it gets reset after leaving https://itch.io/games.
if I then view a game’s page and hit back to go back go the browse games list, the exclude filter is reset.
That’s a bit tricky to fix because the “hit back to go back” interaction is handled by the WebView, not by my app. If you load https://itch.io/games by pressing “back”, to me it’s indistinguishable from loading it from some other link. I don’t want to maintain the same filter if you visit the game catalog again from some other link, that would be confusing, which is why I purposefully reset it. I can probably figure out some kinda solution, though.