Why Kill the Mouse?
©2003 by Kevin W. Smith. All rights reserved.
Visitors to my sites have learned that it is a complete act of futility to click that right mouse button. When they click the right must button they are greeted with a message that tells them the mouse is dead.
Some sites kill the mouse and some do not. I suppose there could be a great debate about the pros and cons of mouse killing, but I have never engaged in one. Not only that, I have never even engaged in a conversation about it. I have no need to discuss the issue due to one overwhelmingly simple fact: I want that mouse dead.
Now, you may be asking yourself why I feel so strongly about killing the mouse. What traumatic event took place in my childhood that could have possibly brought me to this mouse- murdering state of mind.
No childhood traumas, and no single event brought me to my current opinion about the right mouse button. It's just plain common sense.
Go to most web sites and click the right mouse button. Most sites do not block it. When you click the right mouse button, that little menu pops up. And on that little menu there is a selection called "View Source".
If you are involved in online marketing, you have train loads of information in your HTML code that could be useful to your competition. Do you want them to read it?
Furthermore, when you click that right mouse button and then click on "View Source, the source pops open in a text editor (probably MS Notebook). All a person need do at this point is click File/Save As and he's got your web page--source code and all--stored on his computer.
All he needs to do now is to edit it to his liking (probably to your extreme dislike), make it say anything he wants, and then upload it to the internet. He would then be in control of the message "your site" is sending out to people. By adding the URL to search engines, he could create extreme havoc for your legitimate online business.
Extreme thinking? Well consider what would happen if this scenario were to become a reality for one of your sites on which you are selling an item for..say...$125. On the pirated site the price appears with a big red 'X' on it and the pirate has inserted this: "Special Introductory Price $10". Do you think there would be a ton of angry people out there? Do you think your name and business might fall victim to raging flaming? How much time and money do you think you will have to spend to attempt to repair the damage to your credibility and good name?
Perhaps you will never have such great misfortune. But the possibility that you could does exist. My advice is kill the mouse. How? Insert a simple javascript into the body of your page. You can get such a javascript from a number of places on the internet like:
That will kill that right mouse button.
Killing the right mouse button is not 100% effective in protecting your site. There are ways to get around it and still get your code. But this first step in securing your HTML code is simple and will discourage a lot of snooping.
-------------------------------------------------- Kevin Smith is a writer, publisher, editor, public speaker, and audio/video producer. He is editor of eZone Layer Ezine at and may be contacted via e-mail at: mailto:ezoneprofits@myway.com --------------------------------------------------
