Question

I have MyPage.aspx html page (generated using ASP.Net). When user tries to navigate away from this page, I need to close the window – user should not be able to go back or navigate to another page.

When I used window.close() inside window.onbeforeunload event, it asks for a confirmation to the user. “The webpage you are viewing is trying to close the window. Do you want to close the window?” On clicking “No” the user can escape the close attempt. Is there any way to forcefully close the window without giving an option to the user?

Reference:

1. How can I close a browser window without receiving the "Do you want to close this window" prompt?
2. Html javascript to open new window and close current window
3. "Unknown Exception" when cancelling page unload with "location.href"
4. Display confirmation popup with JavaScript upon clicking on a link

Answer 1

You can “trick” the browser like this:

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    window.open('', '_self', '');
    window.close();
}

It seems to work in chrome/safari/ie/ff: http://jsbin.com/olijig/1

Firefox seems stubborn, but there might be another way to do the same in FF.

I should probably say that this technique is in no way standard and I don’t recommend it at all, and this code might break in many browsers besides firefox.

UPDATE

It actually works in Firefox too (latest version), but not older versions (I tried 3.6.1). You need to do some more testing to confirm the browser compatibility.