right-click traps

their defeat, and variations

Some web authors, in an effort to maintain control of their intellectual property, use bits of scripting to keep visitors from right clicking various parts of their web pages.  The idea is to keep visitors from using their context menu to save or copy something.

There are many ways you may be able to defeat such safeguards. (varies by browser and environment)
  • Just disable scripting, or use a different browser.
  • Simply drag images to a folder or another window or program to save them.
  • Take advantage of caching; save whole pages, use a read-ahead "acceleration" program, or just look in the regular cache of your browser.
  • View source, and find the appropriate url the hard way.
  • Use both mouse buttons simultaneously, or hold down the right button while dismissing the dialog, then releasing the right button afterward to wonderful effect.
  • Hit the application key, or shift-f10, or anything else that works just like a right click.
  • Capture the whole screen. (your favorite screen capture utility, print screen, shift-apple-3)
  • Use some tool like telnet or wget to obtain the source, or the file(s) themselves.

The bottom line is, such scripts do not work.  - check out http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/no-right-click-explanation.html -   In addition, there are some bad things that such scripts do.

  • Visitors cannot copy links to email to their friends.
  • Visitors are forced to browse your site in a single window, making Hyperbrowsing impossible.
  • If set to automagically open documents in their associated programs, some users will be unable to take advantage of downloadables.

It is possible to encase all of your site in java or in flash, though that's a whole other ball of wax.