Do you want complete privacy? Don't let servers know even where you come from! Block referrers being sent to them simply and easily.
Every time you click on a link or submit a form, some headers are sent to the server in a GET or POST request. Every time you do that though, your browser sends some extra headers. One of them is the referrer - the address of the page where you clicked on that link (or submitted the form).
Why would you like to block the referrer? Well, everyone has his own personal reasons, better privacy being one of them.
There are more than one ways to block the referrer field though, easiest one though is by using the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox.
A
Download and install Web Developer toolbar.
B
1. Type “about:config” in the location bar, and press return.
2. In the filter box, type “referer” and press return. This should leave you with one preference, network.http.sendRefererHeader. This is probably set to 2.
3.Right click on network.http.sendRefererHeader and select “Modify”
4.In the dialog that appears type “0″ and press OK:
This completely disables the referer header. This is normally what you want, though it may occasionally break a few sites that check the referer header to prevent deep linking or framing of its content. (It breaks WordPress, for example.)
If you run into problems, try setting sendRefererHeader to 1 instead. Setting it to 1 sends a referer header when following a link to another page, but not when loading images on the page. This will block most cross-site cookie tracking, but still allow WordPress and most other sites that depend on referers to function. Setting sendRefererHeader to 2 (the default) sends it when following links and when loading images on the page.
There’s also a boolean network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferer preference. If true, referer headers are sent for https the same as they are for http (i.e. controlled by network.http.sendRefererHeader). If false, referer headers are not sent for https connections. The default is true, and that’s probably OK; but if you like you can set this to false by toggling the value or just double click:
That’s it. You’re done. Taking these steps significantly reduces the ability of sites to track and profile you
Keep in mind though that by blocking the referrer field being sent to server may have some disadvantages though. It WILL trigger Leech Protection if it is enabled, preventing you from viewing some pages or only images/video depending on how it is configured on the server.As a conclusion, having the option of blocking the referrers can be a very useful thing in some circumstances, but I'd advice you only to use it when you REALLY need to in order for you to view websites without many avoidable headaches.
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Originally Posted by Grambo
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