Http_referer

[Jason_Batten]

'HTTP_REFERER'
The address of the page (if any) which referred the user agent to the current page. This is set by the user agent. Not all user agents will set this, and some provide the ability to modify HTTP_REFERER as a feature. In short, it cannot really be trusted.

Okay I just wrote a small quick script for a friend where I use 'HTTP_REFERER' to get the last page as the script is to "forward page to friend" deal. I know there are other ways I'm not getting into that but what "user agents" don't agree with 'HTTP_REFERER'? A friend told me ages ago that some firewall software can block it too? Is this true?

Cheers for any info, I've always not used this function because of doubt if it would work or not.

[Doug_G]

For one, Norton Internet Security on windows can block http_referer. In addition, many proxy servers can also make http_referer unreliable, and you won't see internal addresses on a LAN behind a router/proxy

If you code to use http_referer just keep in mind it's not 100% reliable.

[Jason_Batten]

Thank you for that additional information Doug 🙂

Any one else care to share their experiences?