How do websites disable users from copying text?

[brawnypandora0]

Whenever I try highlighting and right clicking text at nytimes.com, nothing happens. How do they do that?

[TeoBigusGeekus]

How so? Everything works fine here.

[Aquix]

All good here...

http://i.imgur.com/xPHojl.png (http://imgur.com/xPHoj)

[forrestcupp]

nytimes.com works for me, too. But I have seen some web sites that do what you're talking about. Snopes does that in their articles. I always thought they did it by using a giant image instead of text, but I just tried right clicking on the article in Snopes, and there was no image. I don't know how they do it.

[in·ter·punct]

How do they do that?
JavaScript. Site visitors can disable it anyway.

[Dragonbite]

I would suspect it is turned off with Javascript. I have a script on my wife's website which blocks right-clicking to save images. Doesn't mean you cannot somehow get the images, but it makes it just a little more work.

You could try going into the source code view and copy the text, unless the text is generated by Javascript instead, in which case it doesn't show up in the source code view.

[whiskeylover]

How do websites disable users from copying text?


You hire a goon to break their fingers if they tried... or hope they don't know how to disable javascript.

[mcduck]

JavaScript. Site visitors can disable it anyway.

Javascript, using Flash content or images in place of text, or placing an invisible element on top of the text element. Probably there are other ways as well, but in the end none of them works really well (not that I'd even think such functionality should exist, if you don't want people to have access to your content then perhaps you shouldn't put in in the web in the first place... :D)

[Dragonbite]

Javascript, using Flash content or images in place of text, or placing an invisible element on top of the text element. Probably there are other ways as well, but in the end none of them works really well (not that I'd even think such functionality should exist, if you don't want people to have access to your content then perhaps you shouldn't put in in the web in the first place... :D)

You have to give some access to it, otherwise the browser has nothing to show!

[mcduck]

You have to give some access to it, otherwise the browser has nothing to show!

True, and definitely something so many content providers fail to understand. And not just on the web, really. :D

[el_koraco]

(not that I'd even think such functionality should exist, if you don't want people to have access to your content then perhaps you shouldn't put in in the web in the first place... :D)

It's mostly news websites that do this, and the reason is makig it a little harder for the gazillion of independent sites, to copy paste their texts.

[CharlesA]

I thought there were services that would "scramble" your sourcecode so it couldn't be "stolen" ?

But yeah, the no right click thing is just javascript.

[brawnypandora0]

I thought there were services that would "scramble" your sourcecode so it couldn't be "stolen" ?

But yeah, the no right click thing is just javascript.

Why is there no C++script?

[Legendary_Bibo]

Why is there no C++script?

There is no such thing as C++ scripts on websites.

[Dragonbite]

Why is there no C++script?

You mean like there is VBScript (*shudder*)?!

[TheNixObserver]

If you are that keen to copy the text, go to the source code and get it. If it is images that you want, save the page as "webpage complete" and then get it from your pc where you have saved it. Firefox saves the images in a separate folder and the html file is separate. So, saved images can be retrieved. Alternatively images can be retrieved from the browser cache.

[brawnypandora0]

If you are that keen to copy the text, go to the source code and get it. If it is images that you want, save the page as "webpage complete" and then get it from your pc where you have saved it. Firefox saves the images in a separate folder and the html file is separate. So, saved images can be retrieved. Alternatively images can be retrieved from the browser cache.

How do I go to the source code?

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

How do I go to the source code?

In Firefox hit Ctrl+u.

If you do this while you are viewing this page on Ubuntu forum you will see the source code of this page. Then, while viewing the page source, you can hit Ctrl+f, and search for "In Firefox hit Ctrl+u", then you will find this post. The source code also shows the link to my Avatar image, and so fourth. You will have to scroll up and down to find the pieces of this post.

[mcduck]

Easy way of saving the image you want from a web page is to go to Tools/Page Info (in Firefox, if you use a different browser the place might differ, but most have a similar tool somewhere). You'll be able to browse through all images and other media files on the "Media" tab, and there's also very convenient "Save As"-button.. ;)