Informative Writings
» Leave Right-Click Alone!
There's this pesky little trend that's been circling around the internet lately, and no, it's not one of those relatively decent ones such as "Web 2.0" and the new inclination towards site validation. Today, the topic to which I'm referring is the usage of those "disable right click" javascript codes--you know, the ones that people add onto their webpages to prevent others from viewing their source codes or stealing their images.
Basically, what happens is this:
People know that when you right-click an image, you have the option of copying the
image itself--enabling for you to paste it into your program or wherever you desire. They
also know that when you right-click whitespace on a webpage, you have the option of viewing
the webpage's "source"--or the HTML (and even CSS) of the individual page. Because some
people are uncomfortable with this and would like to prevent others from stealing their
stuff, and they also assume
that right-clicking is the only way for others to steal their content, they choose to put a little
javascript code on their webpage that disables right-clicking altogether.
Today, I'm here to tell you why these javascript codes are unnecessary and should forever be banned from the internet. But first off, let's look to the individual tasks that disabling right click "accomplishes". Once I explain these, I'll tell you why "disable right-clicking" scripts are so blatantly useless.
It prevents others from stealing my coding!
No it doesn't. It only gets rid of one way, but anyone with a decent knowledge of how the web works also knows that you can bend around this hindrance by going to View - Page Source. Every browser in existence has this as an option, in one form or another. If you tell yourself, "Well, as long as I'm stopping one or two people from getting to my code, it'll be worth it," this logic simply won't hold up. Chances are, if the person's trying to steal your code in the first place and implement it onto his own webpage, he'll at least have a decent knowledge of how browsers work. Even if he doesn't, the downsides listed at the end of this page all outweigh the slight possibility of you stopping someone from stealing something.
It prevents others from stealing my images!
This line of thought is even worse than the last, because there are even more ways that someone could get around this.
- Anyone with a computer using Windows can just pull up the screen with the image he wants and press "Print Screen Sys Rq" on his keyboard to take a snapshot. Then, he can simply paste it into any graphic editor--even Paint! I know Apple has a method of doing this, but it involves a different set of keys.
- The second way that someone could steal an image is by clicking "View" on the topbar, pressing on the source option, copying the image's URL found in the coding, and pasting it into his web browser. Easy peasy.
There's also another way to get around the right-click script that relates to the script as a whole. If you disable javascript on your browser, you can easily get around the script. This is yet another reason why this javascript code is useless and ineffective!
It couldn't hurt!
You might be thinking,
"But Lydia, I get what you're saying...But it still wouldn't hurt to keep the script on my page just incase! And if it's so easy to get around this, then why can't I just keep it on my site for safe measure? It's not gonna screw anything up."
There are many problems with this philosophy:
- Javascript codes take up space and give your page a longer loading time. And with people losing much of their attention spans every day, why would you want to give them further opportunity to leave your page? Hmm?
- It makes you look ignorant. Whenever I come across a site that has right-clicking disabled, I question the judgment of the site owner. Does the site owner really think he is so powerful that he can stop people from stealing his stuff? Because no matter what, anyone who really cares about stealing his content will have the ability, and there's absolutely nothing the website owner can do about it.
- People right-click for different reasons. Not all right-clickers are out there to steal something you have. Some people right-click to use Firefox's Colorzilla extension. Others use it to highlight and copy something useful (or incredibly dumb, heh) that someone might have said, so that they could quote him, link him, and inevitably grant him hits. Still, others even use right-clicking to bookmark pages. So yeah, you know that script you used to disabled right-clicking? It's been hindering people from bookmarking your page and giving you repeat hits...Nice going.
At the end of the day, this whole topic branches back to the subject of "Accessibility". No matter what, in order to provide a good browsing experience, you'll want to make it as easy to navigate as possible for the visitor. Making your pages take longer to load and hindering your visitor from using his mouse is certainly not going to promote a good browsing experience. Ultimately, this could simply lead you to a decrease in hits.
I hope I've convinced you to not use these dreaded scripts--and if for some reason I haven't, hopefully I've at least challenged your views on the subject. :P