Why you shouldn't disable the right click menu
Published by Subhas Fagu on 05/04/09 01:27:30
Last edited on 17/04/09 16:19:13
Before you decide to disable your right click menu, there are a couple things you should consider first.
It is not 1998 anymore!
Disabling the right click menu was one of the most common javascript functions found on any website that included photos or any other copywriten material. We are now well past 10 years and still some websites have it disabled with a popup dialog.
There are many other ways!
There are many other simple ways for a user to gain access to your images and content. Remember, the internet browser developers make it purposely easy and intuitive to accomplish all such tasks....it's part of there requirements. The simplest way by far is view->source code, not to mention there are plenty of firefox plugins to auto grab all photos,vids,etc.
Most of your viewers are NOT trying to steal your stuff
Unless you market to that crowd, chances are only a small percentage of them are actually interested in stealing your content/media for personal gain. Most would just like to copy and share with friends the products/services you offer. If you don't have a quick way to post to the common internet communities, then you should expect your users to copy and paste your content/images to share with there friends. If you disable the right click then you short yourself of the easy internet viral marketing.
Great alternatives
Protect Images: Instead of disabling the right click everywhere, just disable it on your images. Click here for an example.
Watermarking: This is by far my favourite, the theft of your images is used as a marketing tool for everyone that sees it! ...providing your watermarked your images with your logo of course.
Protect your source code: The best way to do this is to remove all white spaces. This is a much better approach from all the javascript encoders and decoders. The problem with the later is that your site will work regardless of if the user has javascript enabled or not.
Subhas
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