Referral string studies?

[Brett_Tabke]

Know of any studies on referral strings?

I'm looking for answers to the following:
When does a brower generate referral string?
When do they not?

Which browsers:
- generate strings from password protected directories?
- block referrals with the word "password" in a posted forms?
- only generate off site referral strings?
- generate referrals strings between sessions and which don't?
- does a No Cache tag or http Expires/Modified lines effect browser referral generation?
- besides Opera can you turn off referral strings? Hidden option?
- block strings from email/news? Which allow them?
- snip form submitted data from referral strings? Is that on a POST or a GET?
- have other 'hidden' features, options, or bugs?

I can't find any published studies on the above. It is strange too, since referral strings are the heart of promtion results tracking.

[bobriggs]

<Which browsers:
- generate strings from password protected directories?>

I set up a PW protected directory on one domain using mod_auth and set up a page linking to another domain that is logging referrals.

These browsers all sent referers on my Win2K box:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)
Mozilla/4.08 [en] (WinNT; U ;Nav)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; m18) Gecko/20001108
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT 5.0) Opera 5.02

and from my Unix shell account:
Lynx/2.8.1rel.2 libwww-FM/2.14

[bobriggs]

<- besides Opera can you turn off referral strings? Hidden option?>

Found one:

Lynx has a command line switch:
-nofilereferer

to turn of referrals. You might be able to set it up in the .cfg file also.

[Brett_Tabke]

Opera:
- all versions referral string generation optional by user preference setting.

When enabled:
v3.62 generates:
- referrals from all sites but those protected from http access files.
- no form value passed on POSTed form.
- referrals when click is to new window, or when "open in new window" is used.

v5:
- no referrals from directories protected from http access files.
- no referrals from email.
- no referrals from "mouse gesture" into new window (down release). Might be a bug.
- yes referral from shift-click new window, or "open in new window".
- unknown: form/cookie with word "password" in it.
- no referral string on form value "password".

[bobriggs]

Opera 5.02 - I can get a referer from 'directories protected from http access files'.

I assume you mean .htaccess?

My first post I had browser identified as MSIE 5, but now I changed it to the basic (identify as opera):
Opera/5.02 (Windows NT 5.0; U) [en].

Both send referer strings.

[Brett_Tabke]

hmmm. Ok. I was thinking it wasn't suppose to be doing that. hmm

[littleman]

Straying a bit, but if you really want control over what information you are sending out and you are stuck with a windows OS you will love Proxomitron. It is free and a great utility. You could filter js, set the UA to what ever you want, and mask the referrer. Check out the features. [computerstuff.net]

[bobriggs]

>>- besides Opera can you turn off referral strings? Hidden option? <<

Netscape Communicator, version 4, Windows.

There is a file called prefs.js in the Netscape Communicator folder.

You can turn off referral strings by adding the following line into that file:

user_pref("network.sendRefererHeader", false);

Make sure netscape is not running if you want to edit this file.

Or, if the line is already in there and indicates true, change true to false. It might also work on Netscape6.