RefControl

You create a list of sites, and the referrer that should be sent for each site.

To adjust settings for a single site, use the name of that site in the list (for instance www.example.com). Alternatively, using just example.com (without the www) in the site list will apply to *.example.com. More specific items in the list take precedence, so if you have example.com and www.example.com in the list, the example.com action will apply to every *.example.com site except for www.example.com.

For the referrer, the following options are available:

• Normal - send the referrer as it would normally be sent without interference from RefControl.
• Block - send no referrer to this site.
• Forge - send the root of the site as the referrer. In the above screenshot, all pages from www.example.net will use http://www.example.net/ as the referrer.
• Custom - type in any string and RefControl will use that as the referrer. You can use variables in this string (see below).

There is also a checkbox 3rd Party requests only. If this box is checked, the option selected above will take effect only for 3rd Party requests (when the site is not the same as the referring site). For example, following a link from http://www.example.com/ to http://www.example.net/ counts as a 3rd Party request. Following a link from http://www.example.net/ to http://www.example.net/index2.html is not a 3rd Party request.

Additionally, you can specify the default behavior for any site not in the list. You can set this to something other than Normal if you want to be more protective about your privacy. Setting it to Block for 3rd Party requests only is a fairly good compromise between privacy and not breaking sites. If you change the default behavior and then want a site to get sent the actual referrer, add it to the list and set it to Normal.

If you have selected the Custom option, you can include a variable in the string by writing a dollar sign followed by the name of the variable, like so: $VARIABLE. The following variables are currently available:

Variable name	Description
URL	the URL that is currently being requested
REF	the unmodified Referer

You can also include just part of one of the above variables by following the name of the variable by an underscore and the name of the part, like so: $VARIABLE_PART. The following parts are available:

Part name	Description
SCHEME	The scheme, which represents the protocol which is being used (http or https)
USERNAME	The HTTP username, which is rarely used
PASSWORD	The HTTP password
USERPASS	The username and password, separated by a colon. If the password is not present then this contains just the username.
HOST	The hostname of the web server
PORT	The port number of the web server, by default 80 for http and 443 for https
HOSTPORT	The hostname and port number, separated by a colon. If the port is not specified then this contains just the hostname.
PATH	Everything after the hostname and port (includes the leading slash)
PREPATH	Everything that comes before the path (SCHEME://HOSTPORT or SCHEME://USERPASS@HOSTPORT if a password is used)

The Normal option is the same as a Custom of $REF. The Forge option is the same as $URL_SCHEME://$URL_HOSTPORT/. If you wish to act like Forge but instead send the entire URL as the Referer instead of the root of the site, you can use $URL.

To include a literal $, use $$. If you need to follow a variable by alphanumeric characters you can surround the variable name with curly braces. For instance, ${REF_SCHEME}x will expand to httpx or httpsx. Just using $REF_SCHEMEx will not work because that will attempt to expand a variable named REF_SCHEMEx which does not exist.

There's a test page which will display the referrer that was sent by your browser. You can use this to test your installation and settings.

If you want to see the referrer that Firefox sent for a page, you can enable the status bar display. There are three options:

• None - Nothing will appear in the statusbar at all.
• Icon - There will be an icon in the statusbar. This icon will have an all black border if there is a Referer present or in grey/black otherwise. Hovering over this icon with the mouse will show the Referer.
• Referer - The Referer will be displayed directly in the status bar. The hover display will work with this option as well.

If you'd rather not use the status bar display, you can also right click on the page and select "View Page Info". Then, on the General tab, look for Referring URL.