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I've come across a lot of sites that block the right click (context) menu and prevent selection of text by dragging.

I found a Chrome extension, Allow Right Click, which solves the first problem, but what about the text selection? Does anyone know if there is an extension available?

10 Answers 10

4

No script is built into Chrome:

Options>Under the Hood tab>Content settings>JavaScript tab-Tick "do not allow any site to run javascript.

If you need to enable it on a site, either add the site to the exceptions list, or visit the site, then click the javascript icon in the address bar and select "always allow JS on www.xxxx", this will add it to the exceptions list, then refresh the webpage to allow JS to run.

EDIT:

Now it is 2015 and blocking javascript just cripples or breaks most websites so what I do now is i just do a "view page source" in Chrome and copy text from there, a bit harder but at least i can get it.

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  • 2
    Ah yes, very useful. I basically did the opposite of what you suggested - blacklisted sites instead of whitelisting them. The only problem will be if a site has other useful javascript in addition to the click/select annoyances. Jun 30, 2010 at 11:07
  • 6
    This might've made sense in 2010, but it pretty much breaks the web of 2015. Jul 7, 2015 at 16:26
  • Inspect element works for html generate by js Oct 1, 2016 at 17:58
  • I have a better solution for you. Just uninstall browser and read a newspaper
    – pqnet
    Aug 5, 2017 at 15:49
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I don't think either of those answers are helpful. There is now CSS code to block text selection so turning off or blocking javascript is not a help.

So far I have not found an extension for Chrome to help with this, but I did find a bookmarklet:

I have noticed at least one lyrics website has started preventing users from copying lyrics. (As if the lyrics website has a copyright on someone else’s song lyrics!) While there are some good user-experience reasons to disable text selection for certain parts of a web app, but clearly entire the point of a lyrics website is to look up lyrics — and selecting lines can make it easier to read in your browser, or perhaps you want to paste the lyrics into an MP3’s ID3 data (“Get Info” in iTunes).

So screw that.

Here’s a bookmarklet that should allow you to select anything on a web page. It’s not an ultimate solution, but it works for me. Just click it on an offending page.

Reference: http://alanhogan.com/code/text-selection-bookmarklet

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  • It may make sense for clicking and moving text to do something other than selecting the text, such as moving an object containing text. But I don't think it ever makes sense to make text impossible to select. So often, I want to copy a filename from Google Drive, a name from Facebook, etc, but am forced to error-prone manual typing, because of those sites' UX-fail. Sadly, this bookmarklet doesn't seem to solve either issue, at least in Firefox. Jul 7, 2015 at 16:31
  • @Calophi Actually there is CSS code to block text selection: user-select
    – agcala
    Mar 13, 2019 at 11:29
  • You, good sir, are amazing!
    – MySurmise
    Jul 14, 2023 at 12:06
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There is a chrome extension that lets you select text called Selectable. It works on websites like FanFiction, which is what I needed it for.

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  • Thanks. Looks like it works for certain types of scripts but not WP Content Copyright Protection.
    – paragbaxi
    Feb 6, 2015 at 16:54
  • Worked for me on the student directory site where I needed to select text. Sep 1, 2016 at 18:02
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You can use bookmarklet for this.

javascript:(function(){function allowTextSelection(){window.console&&console.log('allowTextSelection');var style=document.createElement('style');style.type='text/css';style.innerHTML='*,p,div{user-select:text !important;-moz-user-select:text !important;-webkit-user-select:text !important;}';document.head.appendChild(style);var elArray=document.body.getElementsByTagName('*');for(var i=0;i<elArray.length;i++){var el=elArray[i];el.onselectstart=el.ondragstart=el.ondrag=el.oncontextmenu=el.onmousedown=el.onmouseup=function(){return true};if(el instanceof HTMLInputElement&&['text','password','email','number','tel','url'].indexOf(el.type.toLowerCase())>-1){el.removeAttribute('disabled');el.onkeydown=el.onkeyup=function(){return true};}}}allowTextSelection();})();

Source

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Try disabling the CSS user-select property

If you are not allowed to select text from a particular website, chances are they are using CSS to disable text selection using the property user-select.

Using the inspect element window, locate this property on the CSS. If you find it, untick it to disable it.

If you try disabling JavaScript, as some people suggest, some websites may not open at all, so avoid doing that if you can.

If you need to change this property every time you access a website, consider using the Chrome Stylebot extension as an alternative.

Cheers.

1

SuperCopy works for me, and it's 5 stars on the Chrome store.

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Allow Copy works for WP Content Copyright Protection: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/allow-copy/abidndjnodakeaicodfpgcnlkpppapah

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    kaspersky says that it comes with a rootkit Trojan.Script.Generic -> deinstalled extension
    – vonjd
    Mar 15, 2018 at 15:33
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I have just found and tested Allow Select And Copy plugin. Works for me.

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I've found a way to go around it that work's for me.

  1. Go to the Inspect page
  2. Navigate to EventListener under the Elements tab
  3. Click on SelectionChange, then click remove.

YOu can go ahead and select.

Thanks

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This affront to web users is created using Javascript. Try using NoScript for Chrome, or blocking the offending Javascript files using AdBlock. You can find the adblock extension in the Chrome Extensions Gallery. Then look at the source of the page that you want to copy from. You should see something like

<script src="weDontLikeUsers.js"></script>

in the header of the website, although they may have hidden it somewhere else. Anyway, block the SRC's URL and you should be good.

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    One site where I noticed it has events attached to the body, eg: <body ondragstart="return false"> Jun 30, 2010 at 11:02

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