refspoof help
well after many seem to be in need of such a help file i thought ..
heck why not write one as i have spent anyway quite some time to refine the extension ..
to test it - use the sample page
a small step by step guide can be found here
!!! invocation of a spoof:// url sets "network.http.sendRefererHeader" back to "2" (default - allow referrers)!!!
online resources:
feedback preferably to the refspoof note board
(previous/archived posts may contain your answer .. if the extension doesnt work try it with a
new profile :) )
there is a FAQ page so go there
and read it through in case of questions ;)
if you want to rate, give some +/- praise use the
listing
at addons.mozilla.org
you can also assign the spoof:// protocol to firefox (different on every platform ex
for osx)
so every globally invoked spoof url would redirect and open with firefox ..
as for the basics what the referrer is:
normally as you travel by links through the web any well behaved browser sends the address it came from
in the request for the new documents .. be it pictures or html pages.
If you enter an url direcly in the address bar or load a bookmark no referrer will be sent.
Now as an example: You search with google for "cars" you'll get a list of links .. if you click now
on one .. the target site might - if they check their logs - know that where you came from and in this case
what search terms were used. (made automated public as trackback in the blogging world)
This behaviour could be changed to disallow any referrers with mozilla for privacy reasons but it normally
could harm the web experience as described why below.
why would i want to spoof/pretend a referrer?
quite some websites (especially in the content/image/news business; end of this page) use referrer control as a simple
mean to prevent outside deep linking. others use it to generate statistics of viewers.
now further to explain how refspoof works :)
the working center (backend) of the extension is the nsSpoofProtocolHandler.js component which watches
for spoof:// formatted urls to handle .. spoof:// also gets shown in the urlbar
now to the gui i created for it .. there are some elements
toolbar
R(eferrer) send button
toolbar options menu
preferences / convert dialog
sidebar
the new!! R(eferrer) send button
enables/disables/makes the referrer static globally
:
all referrers are sent normally (needed/enforced by the spoof:// url to function correctly)
:
all embedded objects are requested without referrer (ex images/frames etc "embedded" in a html page)
could help with images from sites that dont allow others to link to (example/test case
here)
:
no referrer will be sent
:
every object gets loaded with the same referrer (the one in the refbar) -- static referrer
toolbar
can be toggled via the menu "View>Toolbars>refspoof Toolbar" !! or via contextmenu of the toolbars (right/ctrl-click)
buttons generate closable spawned browser messages -- if the command is contraditory
1 - spoofmarks button: generates bookmarks of the format "spoof://tst.com;ref://tst.com". it uses either uses the contents of the url/refbar (default)
or of the current page and also a direct 'save to folder' option (can be set in preferences)
2 - spoof button: takes the contents of the url/refbar and spoofs if clicked upon .. also accepts drag n drop of text or url links
3 - refbar: the url we are going to spoof with - pressing enter while on focus has the same effects as pressing the spoof button ..
is a popdown bar as it generates a not permanently stored history that can be cleared via "Clean refbar history" in the Options menu bar
4 - url=ref: disables/clears the refbar and takes the urlbar contents as referrer on a click on spoof / spoofmark button ..
5 - toolbar options menu
6 - sidebar button: toggles a sidebar with a bookmarks view of the settable 'save to folder' -- ability to add other columns like 'last visit'
- could also be used for spoof livemarks like from del.icio.us .. the alternate view is a settable url page (can be set in preferences)
toolbar options menu
1 - if toggled every "spoof button" click will open a new tab with the respective contents
2 - dumps the referrer of the current page to the refbar
3 - the refbar is also a popup menubar - this cleans its history
4 - opens another window that contains info of and a single button to convert your old .rdf or other spoof file like formats .ini, .spfx and .txt "; delimited" --
(pr0n hint below :)
.. you can select multiple files to be written to one bookmark file :) just hold the respective
modifiers to do so - like shift/command/alt key depends on the operating system
5 - opens the prefs window
preferences
1 - on taking a bookmark either the contents of the url/refbar or the properties of current page are used as mentioned above
if the shift modifier is pressed while pushing the button the other behaviour is used instead
2 - shows either a bookmark save dialog or saves the bookmark directly to the specified folder (like a predefined direct "add bookmark here")
3 - show either the bookmarkstree of the previous selected 'save folder' or the specified url in the sidebar
4 - checkbox to disable the nag messages on click on the url=ref button and another for more info/debug messages if you wanna watch them :)
or are looking a bit at the code .. ;)
bookmarklets
an easy way to diguise javascript commands as bookmarks called .. bookmarklets
.. to use drag the links (box) to your bookmarks toolbar,then click them to use.
could be used if you dont like the toolbar or/and want another way to reload the actual page with a manually entered referer
reload current page with different referrer:
greasemonkey
a nice extension architecture (automatic execution on self defined whitelists) .. get it from the greasemonkey site
it's way more conveniant to perform page reformatting and better to debug as the above bookmarklets
.. to install: load the javascript in the browser view - click the now enabled install menu entry.
http2hxxpLink.user.js
could be set for a search site - so targets wont know your search terms :)
what's behind this inconsistency of the word refer(r)er?
some say the single r version is intentional some say it's a spelling error - fact is that in the rfc of http spec (rfc=read for comment) it's written with one r ..
if you are more into porn and other hints
send me ideas/comments
send your ideas/solutions to the