How to disable the back button in the browser using JavaScript

Question

I want to disable the back button for a website.

Whenever the person clicks on the browser back button it should not be able to go on the page the user visited before.

Answer 1

history.pushState(null, null, document.title);
window.addEventListener('popstate', function () {
    history.pushState(null, null, document.title);
});

This script will overwrite attempts to navigate back and forth with the state of the current page.

---

Update:

Some users have reported better success with using document.URL instead of document.title:

history.pushState(null, null, document.URL);
window.addEventListener('popstate', function () {
    history.pushState(null, null, document.URL);
});

Answer 2

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

The below JavaScript code needs to be placed in the head section of the page where you don’t want the user to revisit using the back button:

<script>
    function preventBack() {
        window.history.forward();
    }

    setTimeout("preventBack()", 0);
    window.onunload = function() {
        null
    };
</script>

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

Hence to prevent user from visiting Page1.php using the back button you will need to place the above script in the head section of Page1.php.

For more information: Reference

Answer 3

Our approach is simple, but it works! :)

When a user clicks our LogOut button, we simply open the login page (or any page) and close the page we are on...simulating opening in new browser window without any history to go back to.

<input id="btnLogout" onclick="logOut()" class="btn btn-sm btn-warning" value="Logout" type="button"/>
<script>
    function logOut() {
        window.close = function () { 
            window.open('Default.aspx', '_blank'); 
        };
    }
</script>

Answer 4

You can't, and you shouldn't.

Every other approach / alternative will only cause really bad user engagement.

That's my opinion.