Link and execute external JavaScript file hosted on GitHub

Question

When I try to change the linked reference of a local JavaScript file to a GitHub raw version my test file stops working. The error is:

Refused to execute script from ... because its MIME type (text/plain) is not executable, and strict MIME type checking is enabled.

Is there a way to disable this behavior or is there a service that allows linking to GitHub raw files?

Working code:

<script src="bootstrap-wysiwyg.js"></script> 

Non-working code:

<script src="https://raw.github.com/mindmup/bootstrap-wysiwyg/master/bootstrap-wysiwyg.js"></script> 

Answer 1

There is a good workaround for this, now, by using jsdelivr.net.

Steps:

1. Find your link on GitHub, and click to the "Raw" version.
2. Copy the URL.
3. Change raw.githubusercontent.com to cdn.jsdelivr.net
4. Insert /gh/ before your username.
5. Remove the branch name.
6. (Optional) Insert the version you want to link to, as @version (if you do not do this, you will get the latest - which may cause long-term caching)

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Examples:

http://raw.githubusercontent.com/<username>/<repo>/<branch>/path/to/file.js 

Use this URL to get the latest version:

http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/<username>/<repo>/path/to/file.js 

Use this URL to get a specific version or commit hash:

http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/<username>/<repo>@<version or hash>/path/to/file.js 

For production environments, consider targeting a specific tag or commit-hash rather than the branch. Using the latest link may result in long-term caching of the file, causing your link to not be updated as you push new versions. Linking to a file by commit-hash or tag makes the link unique to version.

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Why is this needed?

In 2013, GitHub started using X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, which instructs more modern browsers to enforce strict MIME type checking. It then returns the raw files in a MIME type returned by the server, preventing the browser from using the file as-intended (if the browser honors the setting).

For background on this topic, please refer to this discussion thread.

Answer 2

This is no longer possible. GitHub has explicitly disabled JavaScript hotlinking, and newer versions of browsers respect that setting.

Heads up: nosniff header support coming to Chrome and Firefox