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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?

Robotnik
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DisgruntledGoat
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10 Answers10

5

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.

Moab
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5

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

gparyani
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Calophi
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5

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.

Bashevis
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3

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

Victor S.
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1

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.

agcala
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1

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

bEPIK
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0

I have just found and tested Allow Select And Copy plugin. Works for me.

exmaxx
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0

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

Asomonye Agulebu
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0

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

paragbaxi
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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.

Just Jake
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