header("Location: mailto") doesn't work in AOL

bunner_bob

I'm using an email address-hiding script to keep the spam bots out. It works great everywhere except, apparently, in AOL.

In Mac AOL, the script attempts to start a new email message in Apple Mail, not AOL's mail program. In PC AOL it just generates a page error.

The invoking link looks like:
http://www.pacifichorticulture.org/email/redirect_mailto.php?u=customerservice&d=pacifichorticulture.org&from=/contact-us.php

And the script that's invoked looks like:

<?php
$s = '';
if (!empty($_GET['s']))
{
	$s = '?subject=' . $_GET['s'];
}
header("Location: mailto:$_GET[u]@$_GET[d]$s");
?>

<?php if (!empty($_GET['from'])) : ?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=<?php echo $_GET['from']; ?>" /></head>

</head>
<body></body>
</html>
<?php endif; ?>

The first part launches the user's email client with an addressed message, and the second part bounces the browser back to the requesting page. It's definitely the first part (header("Location:...etc) that isn't working - I commented out the latter part and the problem still occurs.

Oddly, after hitting refresh a bunch of times, I got the New Email window, twice I think. Nothing consistent.

Anybody know anything about this behavior - AOL and header/location?

insightpcs

this isnt a problem with your code..AOL just doesn't like any addresses starting with mailto:
thats one of the reasons why I dont like AOL
Hope that answers your question!

scrupul0us

maybe detect an AOL browser and offer an alternative

evan_k

i tend to favor just encoding the entire email address as html entities. It displays fine, works as a link, and confounds most spambots from my experience:

function entitize($string) {
  $result = '';
  for($i = 0; $i < strlen($string); $i++) $result .= '&#' . ord($string{$i}) . ';';
  return $result;
}

$email = entitize('myemailhere@gmail.com');
echo "<a href='mailto:{$email}'>{$email}</a>";

bunner_bob

scrupul0us wrote:
maybe detect an AOL browser and offer an alternative

Good idea - I was thinking along those lines myself (though I do get tired of tweaking for this browser or that browser or...)

I'm trying this:

if (empty($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) || strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'AOL') === false)

as my condition - if not met (i.e. if it is AOL) I just use the regular email link.

Seems to work just fine.

Thanks!