CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascript
Abhinav Garg
Abhinav Garg

Reputation: 1692

How to manually set REFERER header in Javascript?

I want to set Referer header of my webpage. Currently it displays "xyz" and I want to set it to "abc".

Viewed referer using javascript:alert(document.referer)

Upvotes: 79

Views: 267641

Answers (9)

José Rafael Moro Galindo
José Rafael Moro Galindo

Reputation: 45

If you need to set it from google or any other website that links to your website and be sure, google or that website is the referrer value, you may follow these instructions:

  1. Go to google.com
  2. Type site:mywebsiteexample.com
  3. After finding it, right click and inspect
  4. On the top right of the screen, you may find a cursor to select what part of the DOM you want to select and inspect. Select the anchor. Modify the href value to the link you want. Then hit enter.

After clicking the anchor, it should redirect to your link or page and the referrer value should be in this case from google.com or the website you've decided

Upvotes: 0

Guy
Guy

Reputation: 67260

I think that understanding why you can't change the referer header might help people reading this question.

From this page: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Forbidden_header_name

From that link:

A forbidden header name is the name of any HTTP header that cannot be modified programmatically...

Modifying such headers is forbidden because the user agent retains full control over them.

Forbidden header names ... are one of the following names:

...

Referer

...

Upvotes: 15

Maciej Kravchyk
Maciej Kravchyk

Reputation: 16607

If you want to change the referer (url) header that will be sent to the server when a user clicks an anchor or iframe is opened, you can do it without any hacks. Simply do history.replaceState, you will change the url as it will appear in the browser bar and also the referer that will be send to the server.

Upvotes: 3

Nalin
Nalin

Reputation: 1

You can change the value of the referrer in the HTTP header using the Web Request API.

It requires a background js script for it's use. You can use the onBeforeSendHeaders as it modifies the header before the request is sent.

Your code will be something like this :

    chrome.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders.addEventListener(function(details){
    var newRef = "http://new-referer/path";
    var hasRef = false;
    for(var n in details.requestHeaders){
        hasRef = details.requestHeaders[n].name == "Referer";
        if(hasRef){
            details.requestHeaders[n].value = newRef;
         break;
        }
    }
    if(!hasRef){
        details.requestHeaders.push({name:"Referer",value:newRef});
    }
    return {requestHeaders:details.requestHeaders};
},
{
    urls:["http://target/*"]
},
[
    "requestHeaders",
    "blocking"
]);

urls : It acts as a request filter, and invokes the listener only for certain requests.

For more info: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/webRequest

Upvotes: 0

Vaibs
Vaibs

Reputation: 2096

You can not change the REFERRER property. What you are asking is to spoof the request.

Just in case you want the referrer to be set like you have opened a url directly or for the fist time{http referrer=null} then reload the page

location.reload();

Upvotes: 4

casivaagustin
casivaagustin

Reputation: 576

This works in Chrome, Firefox, doesn't work in Safari :(, haven't tested in other browsers

        delete window.document.referrer;
        window.document.__defineGetter__('referrer', function () {
            return "yoururl.com";
        });

Saw that here https://gist.github.com/papoms/3481673

Regards

test case: https://jsfiddle.net/bez3w4ko/ (so you can easily test several browsers) and here is a test with iframes https://jsfiddle.net/2vbfpjp1/1/

Upvotes: 26

Biswajit Routray
Biswajit Routray

Reputation: 21

Above solution does not work for me , I have tried following and it is working in all browsers.

simply made a fake ajax call, it will make a entry into referer header.

var request;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari, ...
    request = new XMLHttpRequest();
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
    try {
        request = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.XMLHTTP');
    } catch (e) {
        try {
            request = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');
        } catch (e) {}
    }
}
request.open("GET", url, true);
request.send();

Upvotes: 2

ABG
ABG

Reputation: 422

You cannot set Referer header manually but you can use location.href to set the referer header to the link used in href but it will cause reloading of the page.

Upvotes: 39

Jason Fertel
Jason Fertel

Reputation: 647

You can use Object.defineProperty on the document object for the referrer property:

Object.defineProperty(document, "referrer", {get : function(){ return "my new referrer"; }});

Unfortunately this will not work on any version of safari <=5, Firefox < 4, Chrome < 5 and Internet Explorer < 9 as it doesn't allow defineProperty to be used on dom objects.

Upvotes: 63

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