# Internet Explorer, Disabled Back button and other dirty tricks

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 16, 2001, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598 "2001-05-16T13:29:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![OneChance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/74df32/32.png) [@OneChance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneChance)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/21 "2001-05-19T01:16:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by Jomo Mojo_  
> **sites (like [washingtonpost.com](http://washingtonpost.com)) that somehow disable you from selecting text**

I think this is just you. I’m using IE 5.5 on Win98 and can select text just fine on that site. I’ve never seen the back button disabled. I, too, would like to see such a site.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/22 "2001-05-19T02:02:03Z")

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OK, I think we’ve got a pattern. In two different versions of Netscape, I was not able to select text from a Washington Post article-- At least, not body text. I could select a few snippets of header and footer text.

Was anyone with MSIE unable to select text? Alternately, was anyone with Netscape _able_ to select text?

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/23 "2001-05-19T03:24:40Z")

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\>\>Also, at the page sailor mentioned, it pops up an about box in IE, but Opera behaves as usual

Nothing else of interest in that page, huh? 😉

Since in that page it is a javascript doing the funny stuff, if in IE you go to tools \> internet options \> security and disable scripts, then the buttons behave normally.

OTOH if it is done with the mentioned HTML event handlers, then disabling scripts won’t get around this.

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**Author:** ![OneChance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/74df32/32.png) [@OneChance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneChance)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/24 "2001-05-19T05:25:45Z")

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I figured out the Netscape 4.x problem with selecting text on the [WashingtonPost.com](http://WashingtonPost.com) web site. A parent table uses the attribute “align=left” which causes Netscape 4.x to not allow you to select any text within the entire table. Take out that attribute and the problem is resolved. Of course, this is a Netscape bug, not a problem with their HTML.

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**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/25 "2001-05-19T06:11:11Z")

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But here is what I want to know . . .

I once got an E-mail at work (from a friend) that told you to click a link to get a free cupholder. You click the link, and you CD-ROM pops out. The cleverness of this operation is enough to give me a laugh, but does anyone know a script for THIS?

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/26 "2001-05-19T14:16:09Z")

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Cyberhwk, did you try [javascripts.com](http://javascripts.com) ?

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/27 "2001-05-19T14:38:01Z")

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Nice observation, **OneChance** , but I’d like to add a couple comments:

The table structure of their documents is actually incorrect. In particular the “\<TABLE width=“100%” …” tag which encapsulates the help button near the buttom of their left hand bar is outside the range of any table cell in its parent table (no enclosing \<TD\> or \<TH\> at that point). I ran the thing through a validator to find this. There may be some other content in there which is in a table, but outside the range of any enclosing table cell.

This sort of thing often causes symptoms like this. The layout engine in the browser “floats” the offending content somewhere on the page, and may get confused as to the extent of screen areas, or layout things on top of each other. In complex layouts like this, you may wind up (usually by trial and error) with something which looks right, but has various small anomalies, which are often browser specific.

Your fix of removing the align=left forces the right hand “bar” of the display underneath the article text rather than next to it, at least on my browser, though the article text becomes capable of being highlighted.

Another tip off is that I ran the page through both Dreamweaver and Netscape Composer, and both editors severely mangled the layout because they couldn’t make sense of it.

Practical suggestion for anybody who is still reading without their eyes glazed over at this point - the “printer friendly” rendering of the article strips away most of the layout, and presents the article text in a form which may be highlighted.

Fascinating that it appeared to be an intentional “feature” of the page to the person who mentioned it.

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**Author:** ![Seraphim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Seraphim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seraphim)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/28 "2001-05-19T18:26:18Z")

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\*Originally posted by sailor \*

> [@](#):
>
> Here is a page which disables the right click: [http://www.taylorli.com/mainpage.htm](http://www.taylorli.com/mainpage.htm) If you look at the source code you can see a some java script which I believe does the trick. You can easily get around that. One way is to just find the images in the “temporary internet files” cache and copy them to your desktop. Load the page, sort the cache by “last accessed” and you’ll see them near the top.

Yes, you can go rooting through your cache files to get the image you wanted, or look at the source code and just copy the URL to the image. But why bother? To copy something from a page with a disabled right-click, just highlite what you want copied and hit SHIFT-F10. Bam, the right-click context window pops up. Here’s a paragraph I copied from that page using that method:

> [@](#):
>
> I am 24 years old and of oriental heritage, standing 5 ft. 6 in. at 110 lbs. with a beautiful face, exquisite features and long, dark, lustrous hair. I lead a very healthy lifestyle focusing on nutrition and exercise utilizing a personal trainer to maintain a tanned, toned, tight physique with long, shapely legs and silky smooth, flawless skin. My preferred attire is classic elegance with a dash of style.

Shrewder web designers can also disable the keyboard. Here’s a simple javascript function to do that:

```auto

<SCRIPT language=JavaScript1.2>
function keypressed() {
alert("Keyboard Disabled");
}

document.onkeydown=keypressed;
</SCRIPT>

```

The way to get around THAT script is to select what you want, then go to Edit-\>Copy.

And what if they disable the menubar too? Well, you can use a program like [netinfo](http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-3356734-100-5851025.html) to view the source without browsing the page, or another like intellitamper to view all the indexed directories.

Fact is, I have yet to see ANY protection scheme on a web page that couldn’t be easily defeated. If anyone finds an unbreakable method proving otherwise, let me know.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/29 "2001-05-19T18:50:41Z")

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Onechance, good job.

Seraphim, yes, you can get around most of those schemes if you know how but 99.99% of people are not going to bother.

BTW, the point about that page is not related to highlighting the text but to saving the picture file. Note also taht a screen copy does not in the end result in the original JPG file. If you get it from the cache you get the original file.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2001, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internet-explorer-disabled-back-button-and-other-dirty-tricks/65598/30 "2001-05-19T19:08:27Z")

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This site [http://terraserver.com/terra/terramain.htm](http://terraserver.com/terra/terramain.htm) has satelite photos of Europe and North America. (The site seems to be down now). You could see the photos on your screen but if you captured the screen with PrintScreen, it would not capture the photo and you would get a tiling of their logo instead. I recall vaguely they were using some “smart image” software. I wonder how they do _that_.

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