Disabling forward button in browser

[Gopal Shah]

Hi,

I am displaying a html page using servlet. I want to disable the forward button in the browser.

I think it is something to do with HTTP header. But didn't feel comfortable going thru ietf and understanding the protocol.

Thanks & Regards,
Gopal

[Bear Bibeault]

There is nothing you can set in the header to disable the browser buttons.

[Gopal Shah]

Will invalidating the session work ?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Gopal,
You can't disable the browsers forward button. You can stop further requests from being processed on the server side. That can be done through session invalidation or tokens.

If you are taking this approach make sure to set the http headers so the page can't be cached. Otherwise, someone could use the forward button and see a cached page.

[William Brogden]

You can have JavaScript (on the browser side) open a new browser window that does not have back and forward buttons, and fill it from your servlet. There is no way to do this with HTTP headers, it has to be code on the client side.

You see this all the time on commercial sites.

Bill