[thelist] HTTP_REFERER v user agent

[David Dorward]

On Fri, 2004-04-09 at 15:18, alex beston wrote:
> "The address of the page (if any) which referred the user agent to the 
> current page. This is set by the user agent. Not all user agents will 
> set this, and some provide the ability to modify HTTP_REFERER as a 
> feature. In short, it cannot really be trusted "
> 
> This is a bit worrying. Does anyone know which user agents (eg browsers) 
> prevent this?

I don't know of any browsers off the top of my head, but plenty of proxy
servers do this.

I get rather annoyed by the http violating "The last page visited by
this user was
XXXX:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

> I need this because I'm working on visitor tracker system and I need to 
> ensure that all visitors orgins are known: ie which ads they have come 
> in on.

> Maybe the only way to do this, rather than putting code into the entry 
> page, is to rely on the access logs?

Use a query string on the ad.

href="http://www.yoursite.example.com/?from=siteAdvertisingYou"
-- 
David Dorward       <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/>   <http://dorward.me.uk/>