Prevent any form of page refresh using jQuery/Javascript

Once the user is on my page, I do not want him to refresh the page.

1. Anytime, the user hits F5 or refresh button on top. He should get an alert saying

   > You cannot refresh the page.

2. Also if the user opens a new tab and tries to access the same url in prev tab he should get an alert

   > You cannot open same page in 2 tabs

Anyway I can do this using JavaScript or jQuery? Point one is really important.

#1 can be implemented via window.onbeforeunload.

For example:

<script type="text/javascript">
    window.onbeforeunload = function() {
        return "Dude, are you sure you want to leave? Think of the kittens!";
    }
</script>

The user will be prompted with the message, and given an option to stay on the page or continue on their way. This is becoming more common. Stack Overflow does this if you try to navigate away from a page while you are typing a post. You can't completely stop the user from reloading, but you can make it sound real scary if they do.

#2 is more or less impossible. Even if you tracked sessions and user logins, you still wouldn't be able to guarantee that you were detecting a second tab correctly. For example, maybe I have one window open, then close it. Now I open a new window. You would likely detect that as a second tab, even though I already closed the first one. Now your user can't access the first window because they closed it, and they can't access the second window because you're denying them.

In fact, my bank's online system tries real hard to do #2, and the situation described above happens all the time. I usually have to wait until the server-side session expires before I can use the banking system again.

You can't prevent the user from refreshing, nor should you really be trying. You should go back to why you need this solution, what's the root problem here?. Start there and find a different way to go about solving the problem. Perhaps is you elaborated on why you think you need to do this it would help in finding such a solution.

Breaking fundamental browser features is never a good idea, over 99.999999999% of the internet works and refreshes with F5, this is an expectation of the user, one you shouldn't break.

Although its not a good idea to disable F5 key you can do it in JQuery as below.

<script type="text/javascript">
function disableF5(e) { if ((e.which || e.keyCode) == 116 || (e.which || e.keyCode) == 82) e.preventDefault(); };

$(document).ready(function(){
     $(document).on("keydown", disableF5);
});
</script>

Hope this will help!

Back in the ole days of CGI we had many forms that would trigger various backend actions. Such as text notifications to groups, print jobs, farming of data, etc.

If the user was on a page that was saying "Please wait... Performing some HUGE job that could take some time.". They were more likely to hit REFRESH and this would be BAD!

WHY? Because it would trigger more slow jobs and eventually bog down the whole thing.

The solution? Allow them to do their form. When they submit their form... Start your job and then direct them to another page that tells them to wait.

Where the page in the middle actually held the form data that was needed to start the job. The WAIT page however contains a javascript history destroy. So they can RELOAD that wait page all they want and it will never trigger the original job to start in the background as that WAIT page only contains the form data needed for the WAIT itself.

Hope that makes sense.

The history destroy function also prevented them from clicking BACK and then refreshing as well.

It was very seamless and worked great for MANY MANY years until the non-profit was wound down.

Example: FORM ENTRY - Collect all their info and when submitted, this triggers your backend job.

RESPONSE from form entry - Returns HTML that performs a redirect to your static wait page and/or POST/GET to another form (the WAIT page).

WAIT PAGE - Only contains FORM data related to wait page as well as javascript to destroy the most recent history. Like (-1 OR -2) to only destroy the most recent pages, but still allows them to go back to their original FORM entry page.

Once they are at your WAIT page, they can click REFRESH as much as they want and it will never spawn the original FORM job on the backend. Instead, your WAIT page should embrace a META timed refresh itself so it can always check on the status of their job. When their job is completed, they are redirected away from the wait page to whereever you wish.

If they do manually REFRESH... They are simply adding one more check of their job status in there.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

No, there isn't.

I'm pretty sure there is no way to intercept a click on the refresh button from JS, and even if there was, JS can be turned off.

You should probably step back from your X (preventing refreshing) and find a different solution to Y (whatever that might be).

Issue #2 now can be solved using BroadcastAPI.

At the moment it's only available in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.

var bc = new BroadcastChannel('test_channel');

bc.onmessage = function (ev) { 
    if(ev.data && ev.data.url===window.location.href){
       alert('You cannot open the same page in 2 tabs');
    }
}

bc.postMessage(window.location.href);

Number (2) is possible by using a socket implementation (like websocket, socket.io, etc.) with a custom heartbeat for each session the user is engaged in. If a user attempts to open another window, you have a javascript handler check with the server if it's ok, and then respond with an error messages.

However, a better solution is to synchronize the two sessions if possible like in google docs.