How to open a link in jQuery without the referral information

Question

I need to open a link from within jQuery but i need to avoid sending the referral information. In shorter words, i need to simulate rel="noreferrer"

Is it feasible?

Answer 1

A quick solution to do no-referer link open.

function open_link(url)
{
    instance = window.open("about:blank");
    instance.document.write("<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"0;url="+url+"\">");
    instance.document.close();
    return false;
}

Tested. Working in FF, IE, Chrome.

Answer 2

I think every browser out there automatically tacks this information onto all requests, and there's no way to directly modify it with JavaScript.

After scouring the web, you do have a couple of options though:

1. Launch the link from within a Flash application
2. Launch the link from within a Java applet
3. Run your URL through a referrer cloaker/spoofer service

All options are ugly and I wouldn't recommend them for usability reasons. I'm basing this off of an old Google Answers question, but I think the answers stand.

Answer 3

You might have jQuery write a link with the rel attribute set to noreferrer, then call it with $(link_you_made).click().