Make site not appear in history (through code, not user)

Question

I'm creating a website for people who need help (getting abused and stuff). There is an 'escape' button on the site to switch to another site if someone wants to hide what they were looking for. But the visited page is still in the history of the browser.

Is there any way to make the site remove itself from browser history? Or does the user need to activate 'incognito' ?

Does this answer your question? [How to clear browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) history using JavaScript or Java except from browser itself?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2190808/how-to-clear-browsers-ie-firefox-opera-chrome-history-using-javascript-or-j) — Xantium, Mar 23 '20 at 10:55

mplungjan · Answer 1 · 2020-03-23T11:17:19.210

1

location.replace SHOULD have done this

The Location.replace() method replaces the current resource with the one at the provided URL. The difference from the assign() method is that after using replace() the current page will not be saved in session History, meaning the user won't be able to use the back button to navigate to it.

try

This test

<button type="button" onclick="location.replace('https://safe.site.com')">Leave</button>

which will replace CURRENT page - so your site needs to be a single page application (SPA) OR every click on the page needs to do location replace too

But yes, suggest incognito

edited Mar 23 '20 at 11:17

answered Mar 23 '20 at 10:50

mplungjan

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Both appear under history for me. Tested on Firefox 74. – Xantium Mar 23 '20 at 10:59
Hmm, they did not use to – mplungjan Mar 23 '20 at 11:00
This does work but in order for it to fully work you need to redirect the user to a different `website` otherwise the last page will still get stored in `history` – Mar 23 '20 at 11:08
@midrizi I do that – mplungjan Mar 23 '20 at 11:09
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***it does work but if the user closes the tab themselves or chrome crashes it will still get stored in history*** – Mar 23 '20 at 11:14
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I also believe that this only helps with hiding the last record, any interaction on the website will create a new history record – Nyx Mar 23 '20 at 11:15
Not if it is a SPA as I mentioned – mplungjan Mar 23 '20 at 11:15
@Nyx no if you have this in every page and you keep clicking some button it will hide all of them and keep the last one which the last one can be some other site like `google.com` – Mar 23 '20 at 11:16
It isn't a single-page. I'm going to try to detect icognito mode, and if not, I will show a popup. – Cryothic Mar 24 '20 at 12:43
If you navigate using `` then there will be only one URL that you can also replace on "leave" – mplungjan Mar 24 '20 at 13:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 23 '20 at 10:53

There is no way of doing this. You have no control over browser history.

It's possible (under Firefox anyway) to delete history using history.deleteAll() but that requires an extension to be added (documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/history/deleteAll). Which probably doesn't help.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 23 '20 at 10:54

0

It's not possible to clear user history without plugins.

For information refer to How to clear browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) history using JavaScript or Java except from browser itself?

answered Mar 23 '20 at 10:54

Make site not appear in history (through code, not user)

3 Answers3