Answered Question

joedevon

M$1.00 Funded By Mahalo ? | April 01, 2009 07:53 PM

Does the referer variable get populated based on previous url no matter what, or only if a link is clicked?

I've never looked this up, but maybe someone knows this offhand?

I'm assuming the defined standard for referer would require that there be a link to the new url on the page before the browser populates the referer variable...but I'm wondering if this is how it actually works on the various browsers.

(It would be nice to have a meta tag or something to suggest to the browser to disable referer on certain pages...e.g. admin sections to avoid giving sites cues on where to look for your logs etc...)

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Best Answer Decided by Votes

srgothard

April 08, 2009 12:15 AM

If someone types the URL directly, the URL for the page they were on is not the referrer. The referrer must be a link or some other means of redirection.

According to some sites, the "referer" variable is "notoriously unreliable. Some browsers and firewalls mask it, or suppress it from being communicated at all."

"Some popular firewalls, like Norton Personal firewall, definitely block the referer variable from being broadcast. Opera also has a setting to prevent it from being communicated as well. Same for a number of security focused utilities."
Source(s):
http://www.jaguarpc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1574

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