Talk:HTTP referer

Spelling

Would it not make more sense to spell the word correctly across the majority of this page, apart from where necessary to highlight the mistake? Andrewferrier 14:16, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC) Unseparated entry. When adding a section to talk page, give it a name - especially if you're the starting the talk page. Yura87 (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the intention in not doing so was to imply (somewhat justifiably) that "referer" is, although historically a mistake, now the "correct"/"accepted" spelling for this usage. Essentially, "referer" and "referrer" have become different words, and this article is only about the first of them. This is, of course, a rather descriptivist take on the situation... - IMSoP 19:30, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Phillip Hallam-Baker, the original proposer of the referer field and most likely the person most likely for the spelling has made this exact argument, that his spelling is now the most commonly used and thus is now the 'correct' one.

I think it's cool that Referrer redirects to a 'common misspelling' of itself. :) - ulayiti (talk) 22:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Since "correct" spellings are only conventions coming from common usage, it is probably more correct to say that "referer" was formerly regarded as a mis-spelling but has come into such common usage in a broad number of respected contexts that it is becoming, in fact, an accepted alternative correct spelling for referrer. In fact, it may be on its way to full acceptance as *the* correct spelling, and referrer may well become an archaicism... we'll know when that heppens when Wikipedia's use of "referrer" simply looks strange and its insistence that "referer" is an mis-spelling seems eccentric and dowdy ;)

Stephen --142.176.233.227 (talk) 14:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I wonder what's to argue here. This is NOT a casual everyday word. It's defined in a standard (both its meaning and spelling)! And since the article describes the term in the meaning given by the standard there's simply no question about how to spell it. There's NO "Referrer" field in HTTP headers. There's "Referer" no matter you like it or not! We could simply explain that matter in the beginning of the article and use the correct (in this context) spelling. It doesn't matter if you deem its spelling correct or not. Suppose there's a template in wiki that's called "spelling_eror", it's called like that and no other way. Because if later i want to refer to this same template and call it "spelling_error" i'd be wrong, because there is NO such template (or if there was - it could be different). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.130.136.30 (talk) 03:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Move approved by consensus--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

---

HTTP referer → HTTP referrer — move proposal for discussion already took place. — Voidvector (talk) 12:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Someone moved this page without discussion to "referrer" and removed all mention of the spelling "referer", for no apparent reason other than personal preference. I just reverted this. It is important to understand that the spelling "referer" is not simply jargon but the spelling actually used within the HTTP protocol itself, as well as all official standards documents. The spelling kind of irks me too but at this point it is deeply embedded in the fabric of the Web. It would be misleading to spell it differently, especially for those people who are writing programs manipulating it. Redquark 02:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer the correct spelling, because

• it is a “referrer”
• DOM spells it correctly: document.referrer
• RFC 2616, the HTTP 1.1 standard, says: the "referrer", although the header field is misspelled. So even the HTTP standard says it’s a “referrer”, but obviously they cannot name it like that because it would break backward compatibility. They could also have named the header field “ref”, but would that mean it’s not a “referrer”? No.

– 91.4.21.49 (talk) 15:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I support this. Worth a move request. --Monk (talk) 22:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I would also support moving to correct spelling, and clearly note the misspelling usage in HTTP protocol.--Voidvector (talk) 12:08, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. This clearly appears to be the way it was spelled. It's like if you name your son Thom and then find out later that Tom is spelled without an "h". [1] uses "referer", and notes that it isn't a correctly spelled word. I can remember when Data General had a spell check program but didn't want to release it to the public for lack of a good word list. It had the fatal flaw that after you spell checked a document you could hit one key to dump all the misspelled words into the dictionary. It had programmer spelled with one m, two m's, and three m's. So the folks who created the Internet couldn't spell. Big deal. 199.125.109.59 (talk) 04:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support per the HTTP standard 76.66.192.6 (talk) 05:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Rewrite

I've just rewritten the Derefer section, Wikipedia does not need a list of dereferer services. The concept of this dereferer appears to be altering the HTTP header defining the referring URI, so I've put in a concise section explaining the whole thing and mentioning dereferer. I've also removed all the external links, as none of them were very relevant to the article and looked like link spam. --Draicone ^(talk) 07:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Hide Referrer / SpoofURL

I see two sites listed in external links - Hide Referrer and SpoofURL. Shouldn't these be removed? I don't think they're considerably notable to be included. Anyone who wants to use such services can easily search it up. I'll remove these links after two weeks if I get no response here. Ankur Banerjee (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Since I didn't get any objections, I removed the said links. Ankur Banerjee (talk) 07:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

When is it sent?

I know that referrer information is sent if I click on a link or if an image is loaded to be slotted into a page I am viewing. But is a referrer sent if I type a URL into the address bar and press enter? This would seem to be a privacy concern, as if for example someone is on their Facebook page, then decides to visit a website (but not by clicking on a link), their identity is disclosed to the site they visit. Is this behaviour consistent or variable between browsers? What happens if you open a link in a new tab or new window, or if you load a bookmark in the same tab that you just had another site in? I've always wondered about this. Beorhtwulf (talk) 17:25, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

When you manually type a URL, no referrer is sent because technically no site referred you. In cases of opening in a new tab, the actual answer partly depends on the browser itself but typically it's the same thing: no referrer is sent. You can easily find out for yourself if you're curious by using Fiddler [2], HTTPLook [3], SmartSniff [4], WireShark [5] and/or many many other packet sniffers [6] [7] or HTTP sniffers [8] [9]. Eliwins (talk) 05:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Chrome and anti-hotlinking - Yura87 (talk) 20:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Some, if not all, "apps" for Chrome cannot be added if the referrer is not "Chrome Store" (Tested via Dragon's option of hiding referrers). Apps are actually links with an icon bigger than Favicon, and with referrer checkup. I.e. if Chrome.supergiantgames.com is visited without having "Bastion" app added, one will be redirected to Chrome Store. Other apps aren't that much into protecting it - i.e. Angry Birds' "chrome" page can be viewed on any HTML5 browser, but if the app is "added", one can play the first episode offline. Those claiming Android has no DRM forget that Android's browser itself, combined with a Google account, could act as DRM. This is just some info you may need to know to understand how much Referrer means to Google Chrome.

Reverted move

I've reverted the move. Referer is the technical term for the header, used in the main RFC, regardless of what spellings are also used. This is important for a technical topic. Also, "HTTP referer" has more Google hits than "HTTP referrer". Similarly, "referer spoofing" has more than "referrer spoofing". Finally, there was no consensus for this change, while the original consensus is right above us. I've also made the spelling in the article use referer. Superm401 - Talk 01:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the history. I see now that the consensus was referrer, and that A:-)Brunuś moved it without consensus. I'll revert myself. Superm401 - Talk 01:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I was just composing some history to clarify. It's possibly worth posting what I have, for future reference: These three articles have a confusing history regarding their titles:

• HTTP referer (move log) • HTTP referrer (move log)
• Referer spam (move log) • Referrer spam (move log)
• Referer spoofing (move log) • Referrer spoofing (move log)
• See RM discussion above (permalink).

Technically (RFC 2616) the term is "referer" but it is acknowledged that that term was and is a misspelling, as explained at HTTP referrer#Origin of the term referer. Johnuniq (talk) 02:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

A:-)Brunuś has just reverted it again without comment or edit summary. I think that's inappropriate, since there's clearly an ongoing discussion. Superm401 - Talk 19:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Background The three articles are listed above. The issue concerns whether the word "referrer" should be used in the titles and articles, or whether the misspelling "referer" should be used (both UK and US spellings are "referrer"). Some history is in the article: the original specification contained the spelling mistake "referer", and that term is used in HTTP headers. Also, many websites use the incorrect spelling in normal text.

The sequence of events is:

• A:-)Brunuś (talk · contribs) moved the articles to "referer" and used that spelling in the text.
• Johnuniq (talk · contribs) moved the articles to "referrer" and restored the original text.
• Superm401 (talk · contribs) reverted Johnuniq, but then self-reverted upon discovering the above sequence.
• A:-)Brunuś (talk · contribs) moved the articles to "referer" and used that spelling in the text.

Johnuniq (talk) 00:48, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Clearly the text should use the correct spelling because this is an encyclopedia and we need to get basic English correct (currently, we have the absurd "When visiting a webpage, the referer or refering page is the URL of the previous webpage" which contains two typos). To my mind, the titles should also use the correct spelling because there is no requirement that a title must use the exact text which appears in a specification. Anyone looking for HTTP referer will find it because that page will exist as a redirect to HTTP referrer. Johnuniq (talk) 00:48, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

  I just asked for comments at WT:WikiProject Computing#Referer vs. referrer. Johnuniq (talk) 03:01, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• Wiktionary seems to recognise wikt:referer… A:-)Brunuś (talk) 10:34, 24 March 2012 (UTC)