Disable browser's back button

user_111663 0
Viewed 120359

How to disable browser's BACK Button (across browsers)?

asp.net javascript
20 Answers

Do not disable expected browser behaviour.

Make your pages handle the possibility of users going back a page or two; don't try to cripple their software.

user_671680

Others have taken the approach to say "don't do this" but that doesn't really answer the poster's question. Let's just assume that everyone knows this is a bad idea, but we are curious about how it's done anyway...

You cannot disable the back button on a user's browser, but you can make it so that your application breaks (displays an error message, requiring the user to start over) if the user goes back.

One approach I have seen for doing this is to pass a token on every URL within the application, and within every form. The token is regenerated on every page, and once the user loads a new page any tokens from previous pages are invalidated.

When the user loads a page, the page will only show if the correct token (which was given to all links/forms on the previous page) was passed to it.

The online banking application my bank provides is like this. If you use the back button at all, no more links will work and no more page reloads can be made - instead you see a notice telling you that you cannot go back, and you have to start over.

user_532120

This question is very similar to this one...

You need to force the cache to expire for this to work. Place the following code on your page code behind.

Page.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache)
user_557470

If you rely on client-side technology, it can be circumvented. Javascript may be disabled, for example. Or user might execute a JS script to work around your restrictions.

My guess is you can only do this by server-side tracking of the user session, and redirecting (as in Server.Transfer, not Response.Redirect) the user/browser to the required page.

devio_213360

There have been a few different implementations. There is a flash solution and some iframe/frame solutions for IE. Check out this

http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/content/fixing-the-back-button-and-enabling-bookmarking-for-ajax-apps

BTW: There are plenty of valid reasons to disable (or at least prevent 1 step) a back button -- look at gmail as an example which implements the hash solution discussed in the above article.

Google "how ajax broke the back button" and you'll find plenty of articles on user testing and the validity of disabling the back button.

user_4007150

Try this code. Worked for me. It basically changes the hash as soon as the page loads which changes recent history page by adding "1" on URL. So when you hit back button, it redirects to same page everytime.

 <script type="text/javascript">
    var storedHash = window.location.hash;
    function changeHashOnLoad() { window.location.hash = "1";}
    window.onhashchange = function () {
        window.location.hash = storedHash;
    }
</script>

<body onload="changeHashOnLoad(); ">

</bod>
user_92851310

You should be using posts with proper expires and caching headers.

user_141040

IF you need to softly suppress the delete and backspace keys in your Web app, so that when they are editing / deleting items the page does not get redirected unexpectedly, you can use this code:

window.addEventListener('keydown', function(e) {
  var key = e.keyCode || e.which;
  if (key == 8 /*BACKSPACE*/ || key == 46/*DELETE*/) {
    var len=window.location.href.length;
    if(window.location.href[len-1]!='#') window.location.href += "#";
  }
},false);
user_6809990
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