Hide or Disguise URL

[scribbler]

I want to be able to hide or disquise the URL in the address bar without having to hide the address bar itself.

For example, I would like [mystie.com...] to be either hidden or displayed as [somethingelse.com...]

Is this possible? And if so, how can I go about this?

Many thanks

[dvduval]

If you also own somethingelse.com, you can use a frame. Otherwise, it would not be possible.

[JamesR]

Actually there is a javascript onmouseover command you can use to do what you want with that. I don't have an example here at the moment...

[Drastic]

<A HREF="http://www.example.com/"
onMouseOver="status='Click this link';return true"
onMouseOut="status='';return true">anchor text</A>

[gangstah]

I'd have to think that wouldn't be possible. What's to stop someone from putting "http://www.cnn.com" in the address bar and then creating an html page that has a fake article about Linus Torvalds going to work for Microsoft R&D.

But what do I know? I'm only a new user with 30 posts. ;)

[netcommr]

from my knowledge, a web doc. does not have access to the address bar.

Drastic>> status='some text' stuff refers to the status bar, not address bar.

[JamesR]

Yes, you are right. That java script and others refer to the status bar. I have not seen anything that actually changes the address bar. Sorry about the confusion.

[dvduval]

You could open a new window and then put your own graphic of an address bar (and other toolbars) at the top. That might trick some people. I'll bet this could raise some legal questions, however.

[g1smd]

Why do this?

If you are trying to fool surfers/robots/search engines then you risk being found out and dumped in case you are doing other things as yet undetected.

Don't do it.

[JamesR]

>graphic

haha...that is a new one! thanks dvd

[dvduval]

WOW! Complimented by a moderator...golly gee whiz!

If anyone takes the time to create one of these, I hope you'll send a sticky with the URL.

I guess all you have to do is take a screen shot, cut out what you need in photoshop, and open the new window with javascript. I forget though...

...What's the javascript to open a new window with no toolbars?

[RobinC]

Nice idea, but it'd be like those "You have new mail" ad's, where people have different looks... You could possibly do something to choose a different image depending on the browser used (IE, Mozilla, Netscape etc), but then you'd not be able to do anything if they've themed it at all... so you'd probably fool those intermediate users who don't theme, but not those beginner users who like to make everything look like Hulk/X-Men/This weeks movie, or advanced users who have everything "just so" and notice if it's even one pixel out ;-P

Otoh, it'd be fun to try, especially with maps and some scripting... Here's waiting for next April 1st... 8-)

[Stretch]

My brain is a bit mushy at the moment but I think this can be achieved using Apache reverse proxy.

Quote from [httpd.apache.org...] :

Suppose the local server has address [wibble.org...] then

ProxyPass /mirror/foo/ [foo.com...]
ProxyPassReverse /mirror/foo/ [foo.com...]
will not only cause a local request for the <http://wibble.org/mirror/foo/bar> to be internally converted into a proxy request to <http://foo.com/bar> (the functionality ProxyPass provides here). It also takes care of redirects the server foo.com sends: when [foo.com...] is redirected by him to [foo.com...] Apache adjusts this to [wibble.org...] before forwarding the HTTP redirect response to the client.

Very tired, can't get my head round this at the moment but think it would work. Maybe.

Zzzzz.

Stretch

[Stretch]

Scribbler, as you are posting this is in 'new to web development', perhaps I should explain that Apache is web server software. My suggestion is not something you could implement yourself unless you run your own server. You would have to talk to your ISP to get this working.

[Ryan8720]

An ISP would never do that. They could get in major trouble.

[Ally_Cat]

One of my competitors owns a "somethingelse.com" address, and they use javascript to pull content from "maindomain.com", which sort of accomplishes what I think you're talking about.

[Stretch]

Ryan8720, there probably are some illegitimate uses for reverse proxy. But there are also many legitimate ones which ISPs would put in place for you.

My first encounter with it was when a domain was transferred away from one of our servers. The new host asked me to setup a host header of temp.example.com and they used this in the reverse proxy on their server. Once they knew the DNS changes had completed propagating through the internet they removed the proxy setting, ensuring the site was always current whether a browser landed on our server or theirs.

I use it to serve pages from development boxes on my office network which has only one external IP. In this way I can develop sites on boxes that match the ultimate hosting environment but only have a local IP. I then use reverse proxy to pull the site from the development box and serve them over the internet.

Hardly worth mentioning as scribblers obviously lost interest but it might be useful information to someone :)

Cheers

Stretch