In what cases will HTTP_REFERER be empty

user_710316 0
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I know it's possible to get an empty HTTP_REFERER. Under what circumstances does this happen? If I get an empty one, does it always mean that the user changed it? Is getting an empty one the same as getting a null one? and under what circumstances do I get that too?

referrer-policy http-referer http-headers cross-domain security
5 Answers

I have found the browser referer implementation to be really inconsistent.

For example, an anchor element with the "download" attribute works as expected in Safari and sends the referer, but in Chrome the referer will be empty or "-" in the web server logs.

<a href="http://foo.com/foo" download="bar">click to download</a>

Is broken in Chrome - no referer sent.

jmoz_685340
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