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Disable Browser Back Button Functionality using JavaScript

Author:Mudassar Khan

In this article, I am discussing how to prevent user from navigate to previous page using back button of the browser or the back option in the context menu.

One cannot disable the browser back button functionality only thing that can be done is prevent them.

Below is the JavaScript snippets that needs to be placed in the head section of the page where you don’t want the user to revisit using the back button

function preventBack(){window.history.forward();}

setTimeout("preventBack()", 0);

window.onunload=function(){null};

</script>

Suppose there are two pages Page1.aspx and Page2.aspx and Page1.aspx redirects to Page2.aspx

Hence to prevent user from visiting Page1.aspx using Back Button you will need to place the above script in the head section of Page1.aspx as shown below.

I have tested the script in the following browsers

1. Internet Explorer 5.55

2. Internet Explorer 6

3. Internet Explorer 7

4. Mozilla Firefox 3

5. Opera 9

6. Safari 4

7. Google Chrome

Try the demo here

You can download the source from here

DisableBrowserBackButton.zip (2.89 kb)

Posted: Mar 24 2009, 03:37 by Mudassar Khan | Comments (44)

Filed under: JavaScript

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Waheed said:

# March 24 2009, 14:28

chandradev said:

Good article,
thanks

# March 24 2009, 14:35

Mudassar Khan said:

Great Effort Mudassar Khan ,

Expecting more articles from you
Have u tested above script in all browsers as you said that due security reason java script not supported by netscape browsers.

Best Regards
Hi Waheed,
I have tested on the browsers whose list I have provided at the end. Its working for me in all of them. You can download the code and try it yourself and let me know the results

# March 24 2009, 15:30

Mudassar Khan said:

Have u tested above script in all browsers as you said that due security reason java script not supported by netscape browsers.

Yes Correct directly using history.forward() will not work hence I was trying all possible tricks that I can do and finally this one worked

# March 24 2009, 15:34

chandrasekhar said:

great effort.

i am using the code in my project.its working properly.
thank you very much.

# March 25 2009, 21:23

DotnetRuler said:

Gr8 Effort Buddy !!
Its very nice, that it is working in all browsers..
Keep Rocking as Always
dotnetruler

# March 26 2009, 16:29

Sangam Uprety said:

# March 30 2009, 22:49

Mudassar Khan said:

Hi,
I tried the demo you provided. I had come to this page from the link provided in the page "Show gridview header when no data is there" page. On clicking back button, the demo page adresss bar displayed this page's address, but remained in the same page [demo page]. But in next click of back button, I was taken to the page "Show gridview header when no data is there". I don't think this is what is expected. Please consider this. Thanks a lot!

I got what you said But the whoel idea is to prevent user for returning back to the page and that was achieved

Secondly you said you were taken to Show GridView Header Page The reason being Browser back is not disabled on that page hence you can revisit it

# March 30 2009, 23:07

foolsday said:

thanks man you save my day... im going to visit this site more often.

# April 01 2009, 00:11

Robin Thomas said:

Hi Mudassar Khan,

Thanx for this wonderful code. I have linked to this post from some sites including asp.net forums.
But a small problem associated with this code is that, it disables navigating only the LAST page visited.

I will explain the situation:

1. User logging in

2. Visit page1.aspx

3. Visit page2.aspx.

4. Clicking logout button

5. User reaches logout.aspx page.

Now the user cannot visit page2.aspx by clicking backbutton. this is fine.

But user can visit page1.aspx by clicking the previous histroy(the black downward arrow placed in back button)

That means , this code prevents the user only from visiting the last visited page.

# April 01 2009, 23:17

Mudassar Khan said:

Thanx for this wonderful code. I have linked to this post from some sites including asp.net forums.
But a small problem associated with this code is that, it disables navigating only the LAST page visited.

Hi Robin,
Yes it will since it does not play with the history and certainly its not allowed
It will prevent back to only that page that you paste the script so if you want to disable back navigation in all pages that is page1, page2 you will need to paste this script in them too

# April 02 2009, 00:16

Sujit Kumar said:

I have tested this in Mozilla, its working fine. But in IE6 and IE7, I am getting a page Expire page. Is that something to do with Browser settings?

Thanks in Advance

# April 08 2009, 19:23

Mudassar Khan said:

Hi Sujit,
Not really.
How are you redirecting using Response.Redirect or Server.Transfer since if you are using Server.Transfer there's a possibility to face this issue

# April 08 2009, 19:29

Martin said:

Put this in the header of every page :
<script type="text/javascript">
function noBack(){window.history.forward()}
noBack();
window.onload=noBack;
window.onpageshow=function(evt){if(evt.persisted)noBack()}
window.onunload=function(){void(0)}
</script>
It works in IE, FireFox, Safari, Opera...

# April 21 2009, 23:58

Mudassar Khan said:

# April 22 2009, 00:21

Jone said:

Hiya

How does one place this javascript in a content placeholder?

My site utilises master pages and I want this script to run on only one of the pages!
Any ideas?

# May 02 2009, 16:01

Mudassar Khan said:

@Jone
Place it in the content page within script tags

# May 04 2009, 01:12

swarna angel kishore said:

Thanks nice code helped me a lot , but the page is refreshing can we restrict that.

# May 06 2009, 15:39

Mudassar Khan said:

Which page is refreshing?

# May 06 2009, 19:04

Everly Marwein said:

This code is very helpful. But the problems arise when you try to visit the previous page even when the user has not logged out.. can we prevent the back button only after the logout button has been clicked. i have tried

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">history.go(1)</script>

but the thing is that it works when i just browse the page and then logout. but when i make a modification to a database table it fails to prevent the loading the previous page when i logout.

Anyways thanks for the code...

# May 20 2009, 05:14

Mudassar Khan said:

# May 20 2009, 05:47

venu said:

nice code, so helpful

# July 09 2009, 00:34

venu said:

hai Khan,
this code is not seems to working in chrome.....
please check it and give me a suggestion .its very urgent.

# July 09 2009, 00:51

Mudassar Khan said:

Hi Venu,
The code works in all 5 major browsers and I have tested it
Still for your confirmation I checked the demo on this site and it is working fine

# July 09 2009, 01:33

Prafulla said:

Not Working For Chrome, when i click on Button it not redirect to next page for 1 click.

# July 19 2009, 17:01

Mudassar Khan said:

Hi Prafulla,
You can try the demo on this site and the above code is working fine in chrome

Thanks

# July 19 2009, 22:53

Sumeet said:

Hi M Khan,

This is very useful code however, do you have any idea on how to show an warning message or an alert before history.forward() gets executed?

Please suggest as I think this should add value.

Thanks,
Sumeet

# August 05 2009, 18:27

Mudassar Khan said:

image warning?
What does that mean?

# August 05 2009, 19:28

Sumeet said:

I am asking any alert message should also pop up when user clicks BACK button.

Hope I am clear.

Thanks

# August 06 2009, 14:51

Mudassar Khan said:

Do this way

function preventBack(){alert("Back Button is disabled.");window.history.forward();}

# August 06 2009, 15:46

sumeet said:

Don't you think it will throw alert on back load itself???

Just test your code and share with me.

Thanks,

# August 06 2009, 22:35

sumeet said:

I mean on Page load

# August 06 2009, 22:35

Mudassar Khan said:

Yes it will,
There's no other solution

# August 06 2009, 22:51

shah said:

One thing I want to know is why preventBack() javascript function is not executing when we click on back button but it does when we redirect to page1.aspx

# August 07 2009, 03:08

shah said:

sorry for wrong question

why preventBack() javascript function is not executing when we redirect page1.aspx. but it does when we click on back button. How does that script work can you please explain.

# August 07 2009, 03:11

Mudassar Khan said:

Hi Shah,
basically it works only when there's page entry in the history before the page that has the script
When you come first time there's no history entry present for the next page Thus it does not redirect
When you press back button you have the next page in history hence it sends you back to the page from where you came

# August 07 2009, 03:59

Raju said:

Hi Mudassar,
I have been struggling to get this functionality right. For 95% of the cases it works fine, but for some cases, it says "Page has expired". It will be very helpful if you can give me some heads up on possible reason

# August 12 2009, 21:54

Mudassar Khan said:

Have you disabled caching on the page This will happen only when caching is disabled Thus page is not cached

# August 12 2009, 22:45

Murtaza said:

Thanks you solved my query its really helpful.

# August 23 2009, 19:24

Aejaaz said:

Assalamualikum Bhai good job...U helped me alot..Thanks

# September 07 2009, 02:47

Vijay Jadhav said:

Hi,

Gr8 work.

Good one.

# November 15 2009, 19:27

John said:

This is pretty easy to work around, not really a secure solution.

# November 19 2009, 00:38

Sugath said:

It's gr8..... very helpful article

# November 20 2009, 06:34

rajesh said:

This is working, I have been looking for solution on opera...this is working perfectly fine.

Rajesh

# December 16 2009, 23:26

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