noreferrer.js

Cross-browser support for HTML5's noreferrer link type.

HTML5 defines a new link type called "noreferrer" which may be used to annotate a hyperlink to indicate that a Referer (sic) header should not be sent when following the link.

This is particularly useful when you want to put hyperlinks to external resources on your private site which URL should not be leaked.

At the time of writing, WebKit-based browsers such as Safari, MobileSafari, Chrome and Opera 15+ already support this feature but IE, Firefox and Opera 12- do not.

This package contains two variants of JavaScript implementations that add the "noreferrer" link type to those browsers without native support.

Requirements

• noreferrer.js depends on:

  • prototype.js 1.6 or later

• jquery.noreferrer.js depends on:

  • jQuery 1.2 or later

Compatibility

• Chrome, Safari, MobileSafari, Opera 15+ and other WebKit-based browsers

  These have native support for noreferrer links, so noreferrer.js does nothing.

• IE 6+

  noreferrer.js uses a simple meta refresh technique to suppress Referer, plus disables opening a new window with middle clicking.

• Opera 12-

  There seems to be no way to prevent the browser from sending a Referer header, so noreferrer.js replaces all noreferrer links with those using Google's redirector.

• Firefox and other browsers

  noreferrer.js uses a data URI technique to suppress Referer, plus disables opening a new window with middle clicking.

Usage

Just include either noreferrer.js or jquery.noreferrer.js, depending on the JavaScript framework you are using, at the end of the part of an HTML document, and an onload event handler is attached to enable the noreferrer trick for each link with the noreferrer rel type.

<script type='text/javascript' src='noreferrer.js'></script>

It does not deal with dynamically created links at the moment.

History

• v0.1.3

  • Bundled jquery.noreferrer.js.

  • Make small optimizations.

Author

Akinori MUSHA <[email protected]>

License

All files except for ones under "vendor" are licensed under a 2-clause BSD license.

See LICENSE for the copyright information and license terms.