Blocking Referrers in Firefox

[bounty29]

I found this on another site, I figured some people might find it useful here. I don't know how many people use Firefox, but if you don't, you should.

If you don't do this, when you click on a link that is on this site, the site you end up at will see that you came from "icmag.com/ic/thread4230785403 blah blah blah"

Doing this blocks that information from being sent, so it's like you just typed the address into your address bar, and didn't come from a website. Honestly, when I'm clicking on links to hydro shops and stuff, I'd rather not draw attention to the site. Same goes for government sites and stuff (which are linked here more often than you might think.)

Disabling the Referer Header in Firefox

How does it work?
Lot's of websites, especially the bigger ones have a so called deeplink protection on their images. A deeplink protection makes sure that only the original website can display the images. If any other website links to their images, the images will simply not show.

A deeplink protection is based on a thing called Referer Headers. Every browser sends a bundle of information to the website that the visitor is watching, such as country of origin, browser version and other non-identifiable information. One of these is the Referer Header. This contains the URL of the website that linked to this page and/or image. A deeplink protector checks the Referer Header for every image and matches it up with the URL of the original site. If it doesn't match, the image doesn't show.

There are several ways to disable the Referer Header and Firefox comes with a build in option for it. Follow the instructions below and you'll be done in no time!

Step 1
Open Firefox and type "about:config" in the address bar.

about:config is is a build in page in Firefox that allows you to tweak all settings, including some that are not found in the Preferences menu.

Step 2
On the config page you'll find a field called Filter at the top. In the filter field type: "referer"

Step 3
The preference rule "network.http.sendRefererHeader" will remain in the list. By default the value of this rule is set to 2. Double-click this rule and change the value to 0 (zero).

When it's set to 2, Firefox will send the so called Referer Header to every webpage you request. With this information a deeplink protector can see if the image was requested by the original site or a different one (e.g. Strip Dir.) When it's set to 0, Firefox wil not send any Referer data and the deeplink protection will fail.
That's it!

 

[Guest]

Very valuable information, thanks for posting!

 

[Greenjag]

I am so glad I switched to Firefox recently. I've been tweaking stuff constantly ever since. Bill Gates - you're history dude!

Thanks Bounty.

 

[guest]

Thanks .. I needed that!

 

[bounty29]

I'm glad you guys are finding this useful. I completely forgot about it because I did it a long time ago, but someone mentioned referrers in a thread and it reminded me of this.

 

[humble1]

thanks, bounty!
my first step to a secure device. now, if i can just figure out how to post anonymously...

 

[badboyg]

wow GOOD INFO>> ok any one have any more,, I see buttloads of feilds that could be tweeked,,,

 

[bounty29]

http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Covers just about everything you can tweak, that's a great site for games and optimizing your system and stuff. Glad to see people appreciate this.

 

[cocktail frank]

nice link bro

 

[johnboi2006]

excellent information!!!

 

[johnboi2006]

I need to tell you guys something here. I had to reset the referer back to "2" to get my bank website to work, meaning some websites that require a login may not work without the referer set to default "2".

 

[2buds]

Thanks!

 

[bounty29]

bump

 

[GI-DRO]

i just did it...

now can someone please explain to me in layman terms what i just did?

 

[bounty29]

Now I'm not sure if the new warning page has done anything about this, but this is how it normally works.

Before doing this:

1. You see a link on a thread here
2. You click the link, which brings you to the website (let's say www,hydroshop.com)
3. The owners/admins/whoever of www,hydroshop.com look in the logs and see where they get their hits from.
-Google - 400
-Yahoo - 50
-ICmag - 950 (numbers are pure made up, I have no idea what they'd be, but they'd be able to see where people come from)
So this tells them that 400 people found their site through clicking a link they found on google, 50 people found it through clicking a link through yahoo, and 950 people visited their site coming from this site.

4. This only happens when you click a link on a site to get to another.

There are a couple ways around this. One, is doing the steps outlined above. This blocks the information of where you're coming from, so that the owner of the site won't see that you found their site from ICmag.com

The other, would be to simply type the address into the address bar and hit enter, or go, or whatever you do. Yeah, it's not something that's gonna get you busted, but it's just an easy thing to do to make yourself a little more anonymous.

 

[GI-DRO]

^^thanks so much for elaborating, appreciate it!

 

[budvapor]

great tip! thx!

 

[Goose Duff]

 

[Guest]

i wish i had seen this a long time ago, thanks for the info bounty

 

[LivingTheDream]

I wish I could give you rep for this, (not enough posts) very useful.