Break Out of Frames Using JavaScript

By  on  

I thought frames went out of style a decade ago but apparently everyone feels the need to duplicate the Digg Bar. I don't trust these framed services so I choose to use a JavaScript snippet that prevents my site from being in someone else's frame.

The JavaScript

if (top.location != self.location) {
	top.location = self.location;
}

Don't let your site be framed in! Use this JavaScript snippet!

Recent Features

  • By
    Write Better JavaScript with Promises

    You've probably heard the talk around the water cooler about how promises are the future. All of the cool kids are using them, but you don't see what makes them so special. Can't you just use a callback? What's the big deal? In this article, we'll...

  • By
    Responsive and Infinitely Scalable JS Animations

    Back in late 2012 it was not easy to find open source projects using requestAnimationFrame() - this is the hook that allows Javascript code to synchronize with a web browser's native paint loop. Animations using this method can run at 60 fps and deliver fantastic...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Using jQuery and MooTools Together

    There's yet another reason to master more than one JavaScript library: you can use some of them together! Since MooTools is prototype-based and jQuery is not, jQuery and MooTools may be used together on the same page. The XHTML and JavaScript jQuery is namespaced so the...

  • By
    Creating Spacers with Flexbox

    I was one of the biggest fans of flexbox before it hit but, due to being shuffled around at Mozilla, I never had the chance to use it in any practice project; thus, flexbox still seems like a bit of a mystery to me.  This greatly...

Discussion

  1. haha, I really like this. I agree with your thoughts on frames.

  2. I thought I’d seen that for the last time last millennium! Although I also agree with the nasty framed services – so might have to join in and add it to my site too :) Obvious, but very easy to not think of

  3. This is the very same basic technique for preventing clickjacking. Basic, because it doesn’t work in IE, if your site is framed with security=”restricted”

  4. As seen on The Good Parts… shouldn’t you use !== instead of != for comparisons like this one?

    d.

  5. haha!
    this is first javascript that i learn when i was baby :D

  6. David,

    i agree. I saw a few articles ranting about the Digg bar when it came out and one of them had this same solution – so I added it. Works great!

    Just had an idea though – what if you could recognize where the bar was coming from (like Digg) and get rid of the bar but add some little area to your page that recognizes the user and the functionality they might want. For Digg, just add a little Digg this button or whatever the Digg bar offers. Facebook, Hootsuite, a few others that I know of.

    It would be similar to the WP Greet Box Plugin that gives a quick message depending on where visitors come from.

    This way you lose the bar, but keep the sharing aspects and make it look like it fits your site.

    -Marty

  7. Ben

    I like frames sometimes. I think the Diggbar is really useful. However frames can be over used like you say.

  8. I use this on one of my sites. It works OK and you need just 2 lines of javascript. Personaly I hate frames. This was popular years years ago.

  9. Wow, haven’t seen this piece of code in 8-10 years, when using frame was the norm.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!