View-source URI scheme

The view-source URI scheme is used by some browsers to construct URLs that refer to a source display for a given resource.

For example, this URI would show the source of the page located at http://www.example.com: view-source:http://www.example.com

On 25 May 2011 the 'view-source' URI scheme was officially registered with IANA ^[1] per RFC 4395.

Browser Support

Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer both supported the scheme, but support was dropped from Internet Explorer in Windows XP SP2 due to security problems.^[2] Firefox also suffered a similar security issue (by combining view-source and javascript URIs^[3]), but still supported it in Firefox 1.5^[4] after being fixed. In 2009 a new discovered bug was fixed in Firefox 3.0.9.^[5]

• Mozilla Firefox - supported
• Netscape - supported
• Internet Explorer 4, 5, and 6 - supported
• Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 - not supported after Windows XP SP2
• Safari 3.2.1 - supported^{[citation needed]}
• Safari 5 - not supported
• Opera 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 - not supported
• Google Chrome - supported^{[citation needed]}
• Epiphany - supported^{[citation needed]}
• HP webOS - supported in-browser via a homebrew app called Internalz Pro^[6]

References

1. Yevstifeyev, M. "'view-source' URI scheme registration template". Retrieved 17 July 2011.
2. "view-source Protocol". MSDN. Retrieved 2009-02-25.
3. mikx (2005-05-21). "Mozilla Firefox view-source:javascript url Code Execution Exploit". milw0rm. Retrieved 2009-02-25.
4. jonathan (2005-11-30). "View Source Bug Fixed and a Tip". blogzilla. Retrieved 2009-02-25.
5. Fleischer, Gregory (April 21, 2009). "MFSA 2009-17: Same-origin violations when Adobe Flash loaded via view-source scheme". Mozilla. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
6. Robitaille, Jason (2010-08-28). "Internalz 1.3 brings style with a dark theme and more". PreCentral. Retrieved 2011-02-11.