10-second Fix: Block Your Referer to Keep Alexa Graphs Working on Statsaholic and Everywhere Else
Posted at 11:02 am on March 27th, 2007 by Ron in Statsaholic |[UPDATE - March 31: Alexa has modified their graph images so that if you turn off your referer headers as described here, you will see only the first domain in your list, even on their own site. This effectively prevents users who choose to conceal referers for privacy or any other reason from seeing the full functionality of their graphs. As more and more companies open up their systems to promote widespread use, Alexa seems to be doing all they can to close theirs down.]
It appears that Alexa has shut off their traffic graphs on all the websites of the world, with the exception of their own, Alexa.com. The sadly ironic part of this is that they’ve apparently broken their own widgets, too — all in an effort to shut down Statsaholic.
If you’re tired of seeing white boxes where the pretty graphs used to be, and you’d like to remedy the situation, all it takes is Firefox and a quick, easy, 10-second fix. Here’s what you do:
- Make sure you’re using Firefox v2 (this may work with Firefox v1, but I haven’t tested)
- Type “about:config” in the address (url) field, and hit Enter
- Find the “network.http.sendRefererHeader” property by typing “refer” into the Filter: field
- Double-click that property, and set its integer value to “0” in the prompt.
- You’re done! Go back to Statsaholic and see the graphs in all their glory.
Note: keeping the referer header turned off in your browser may have some unintended side effects on certain websites. If anyone can think of why you shouldn’t just leave off referers, which makes your web browsing habits more private to every website by preventing the site from knowing where you came from, let me know in the comments here. If you’re concerned about having the referers off, simply turn them back on when leaving Statsaholic — it takes only a moment to turn them off or on once you get the hang of it.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Thanks for keeping this site up. Its such a great tool for us webmasters.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Hmm - compete.com does not work either (well the graphs do not show up) - does that mean Compete.com uses alexa.com? Are they competing? hmmm.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
To do the same thing in Opera 9.10:
1.) Click on Tools -> Preferences in the menu
2.) Click on the Advanced tab
3.) Select the Network option
4.) Uncheck “Enable referrer logging”
Do a hard refresh of the Statsaholic graph (Ctrl + F5) and you should be good to go.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
A lot of sites, for better or worse, depend on referrers. For less of a global change, install the refcontrol firefox extension.
+ Once installed, right click where the chart should be
+ Select RefControl Options For Images’s site…
+ Click Custom and enter the value: alexa.com
+ Reload
That’s it. Should work anywhere an alexa chart is displayed!
March 27th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Nice post. I think I would prefer an extension that made it easy to toggle this on and off. The referrer information is valuable to webmasters. Users might not care about that, but when you’re running a website, the referrer data is valuable and can help improve your site. That, in turn, benefits the end user.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Thanks for the tip!
March 27th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Hey, I see that alexa is trying there hardest to stop your site….Idk why : ( I feel bad that your site is having to overcome these obstacles, I hope it works out good I love your site.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:12 am
[...] is what I found and yes, it seems to hold a solution [...]
March 28th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Hi! Do you have any fix for IE v.6 user? Thanks
March 28th, 2007 at 8:04 am
[...] you still want to see the beautiful graphs on thelogohomepage or any other website, Ron Hornbaker has just written a great tip on how to counter the alexa action with firefox tweaking: 1. Make sure [...]
March 28th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Can’t you use php’s curl function to grab the graph ?
March 28th, 2007 at 8:46 am
There are websites which do things like block images unless the Referrer matches their site - this is to combat people leeching their bandwidth by linking directly to images. If you don’t send a referrer, then you won’t be able to see these images.
That said, the sites that do this are in the extreme minority.
March 28th, 2007 at 8:56 am
I’d be pleased if anyone can tell my why Alexas stats are relavant at all!?
March 28th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Even faster in Opera is to hit F12 and uncheck Enable referer logging. Then, just as quick to turn it back on.
March 28th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I can use compete.com with no problem.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Thanks. That was a quick fix!
March 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Check out the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox. It has a simple on-off for disabling referrer, as well as a whole host of other useful features. Other features include: Disabling cache, managing cookies, disabling images, inspecting forms, converting POSTs to GETs, viewing response headers, editing CSS on the fly, etc.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
That said, it’s probably not a fully featured for referrer management as refcontrol.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Using the there is an option to “Disable Referrers” which you can toggle on and off.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:19 am
You can control what gets sent as the HTTP Referrer on a per-site basis using the Firefox extension called RefControl at http://www.stardrifter.org/refcontrol/
Using this extension you can block only referrers being sent to Alexa if you wish.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Using something like refcontrol (see above) is FAR better for the happiness of the Web. Yes, you can make yourself less trackable and screw over service providers who you disagree with, but I wouldn’t be able to build to amazingly cool things I’m building without referrer URLs — either we couldn’t reliably deliver content to other web sites for you or we couldn’t stay in business, or both.
If you don’t like a company’s change in policy, raise a PR ruckus. Don’t screw us all over.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:28 am
NO WAY! i want the WWW to know i am using either Firefox, SeaMonkey or Opera on Linux, buried as a stupid idea = Lame…
P.S. fsck Alexa, i don’t give a damn what they think anyway…
March 28th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Referrers are used by many web sites to prevent image leeching.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Good fix.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Is there anyway we can turn it off just for Alexa?
March 28th, 2007 at 10:18 am
-> Mojo:
HTTP/Referrer is the data about the referring site to a particular resource. What you’re thinking about is HTTP/UserAgent, which sends information about the browser and client.
I also second the use of RefControl FF extension.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:09 am
There is a mozilla extension called “prefbar” that works in firefox and has a customizable tool bar and you can add a checkbox to send referrer or not.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Why dont they understand the more they open things up the more people will use their services and FREELY publicize it for them.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:38 am
One negative side effect of switching off referrers in the browser is that some porn sites will no longer function. Many use the http referrer to determine where you came from. If you didn’t come from a “partner” site then you get no porn.
Apparently.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Relying on Alexa for web site traffic data is like getting legal advice from a pool of jurors. The data comes from ad-ware-like browser toolbars, installed by people either too dumb or too naive to understand the implications of a commercial product monitoring their browsing habits.
If someone wants to surrender his or her privacy in this regard, fine, that’s their decision, vaya con dios, etc. But don’t you webmasters expect for a minute that the majority of your target audience feels this way. The integrity of the data (particularly when its monetized) is innately jeopardized and cannot possibly be used as an accurate gauge of web traffic.
Is there an ad-free and/or open-source initiative that is working towards the same goal? If not, then there should be. Yes, it’s the same problem of expecting people to surrender their privacy, but there would at least be a modicum of legitimacy in its favor which would entice more savvy users, and you sure as hell wouldn’t have the kind of problem you’re seeing right here regarding Statsaholic.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Some websites need the Referrer tag to be there so you can gain access…albeit they are usually really cheap porn sites which are fun and easy to hack(see /windows/drivers/etc/hosts and you get the idea)
March 28th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
- IE User says:
- Hi! Do you have any fix for IE v.6 user? Thanks
The best fix for IE 6 is “INSTALLING FIREFOX”!
March 28th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[...] to ronhornbaker.com for publishing this [...]
March 29th, 2007 at 2:45 am
newegg.com requires referrers to be active within its own site for order placement and checkout to function properly. This panacea is mis-advertised.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:06 am
One important thing to say is that breaks many web applications that depends on the HTTP_REFERER varible. One of them is Typo3 Content Management System, it hates this.
CB
March 31st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Looks like they got wise to this. Even with the referrer info switched off in Opera the graphs don’t appear anymore…
March 31st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
[...] meanwhile, has posted instructions on how to get around the Alexa ban, at least for users of the Firefox browser. These icons link [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Note on the 31-March update…
at least for me, it appears to make no difference if referrals are switched on or off…
For Opera anyway, only the first domain in the list is shown in either state. Internet Explorer also only shows the first domain.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I agree with si, I have referers set back to what it was (”2″) and it still shows one domain only.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:19 pm
What si said.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 am
I agree with other posters, there should be a complete open source solution to this problem. Get firefox on board, give users the choice to opt in and start building up a separate independant set of data.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:40 am
I like compete.com better than statsaholic anyway.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Thanks for the great tip!
May 1st, 2007 at 1:30 pm
This tool is da bomb.
Im just an end-user and this tool does the job.
Thank you for sharing it.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:28 am
It gets so tiring, hearing the defenses for all the blatant snooping & surveillance & privacy violations that occur online!
Thanks for publishing this easy-fix to shut off referrers in Firefox, but it would also be useful if you’d include other ways to tighten up security & privacy in the various browsers.
Good luck!
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:20 am
I needed this fix as ff3 has rendered refcontrol disabled