AntiCopy

5.0.0

2025-11-02

Major update - fully compatible with both Joomla 5 and Joomla 6

Added

1. Fully supports both Joomla 5 and Joomla 6 natively
2. Added Content Security Policy (CSP) header via meta tag for Joomla 5 compatibility

Improved / Changed

1. Refined right-click and drag protections to meet Joomla 5 JavaScript standards
2. Improved `onBeforeCompileHead` protections (framing, print restrictions)
3. Refined `onAfterRender` HTML manipulations for safer sanitization and copy protection
4. Replaced deprecated `document.write` with safe DOM manipulation (innerHTML + appendChild) to ensure page content renders correctly without breaking existing CSS or JavaScript
5. For right-click on images, improved right-click protection logic to detect both `<img>` elements and their direct container elements.
     - Replaced simple `oncontextmenu` handler with a unified event listener that prevents the context menu when the target element is an `<img>` or directly contains one.
     - This ensures reliable protection for lazy-loaded images.

Removed

1. Removed legacy `attachEvent` code (IE < 9 support dropped)
2. Removed deprecated Joomla 3–4 compatibility checks

Internal / Code

1. Updated manifest files to Joomla 5 XML schema (`version="5.0"`)
2. Updated SQL scripts to use `utf8` charset and strict mode compliance
3. Updated back-end code for notification modal to meet Joomla coding standards
4. General code cleanup and optimization

Update to a newer version from an older version

You can update your installed copy of the free version to the latest free version by using Joomla Updater on your live site. For a paid version, it requires a payment or invoice ID. To update a paid version with Joomla Updater, you should enter your payment or invoice ID into the installer plugin of this extension. If you have a valid and unexpired payment or invoice ID, your paid full version of this extension can be updated to its latest paid full version without a charge. To get your payment or invoice ID, open the corresponding page and submit the PayPal account used for the payment.

Also, you can update it manually. 

Compatibility with Joomla Versions

This plugin is compatible with Joomla 5 natively.

Configuration

The plugin requires configuration before enabling it — such as restricted user groups, etc. Also, remember that it automatically adds Public and Guest groups to the list of restricted groups.

Plugin order You should verify the plugin order before activating the "Protect HTML" protection. It should execute the plugin after other system plugins, such as System - SEF, which modifies the HTML source code. Also, remember that plugins must be re-ordered after another extension is installed.

URL Exclusion

It deactivates anti-copy functionalities for web pages in the "URL Exclusion" list. You should write every single URL in its line. Also, it supports wildcard pattern matching.

Print Screen

The anti-print screen functionality has been removed from version 3.0.0. Because this operating-system-specific functionality is unreliable, it was also a problem for regular visitors.

iFrame

The extension can't completely protect the content inside an iframe that loads its content from another website.

Select and Copy/Cut

It allows text selection but restricts copy and cut.

Paste

It doesn't block paste in form elements due to the regular user's comfortability.

Remark

Almost all anti-copy methods stop novices only. For the basic free version of this plugin, your content can be copied by disabling JavaScript, viewing HTML source code, or modifying CSS with a web browser's inspector tool or devtools. The paid full version strongly demands enabling JavaScript and close devtools. If it is still disabled or open, the plugin hides content. Also, the full version of this plugin loads the HTML body with AJAX or encodes, shuffles the HTML body source with JavaScript, and turns off specific keyboard shortcuts to make it hard to copy your website's content.

Administrator Back-end

The back-end isn't affected. It only adds AntiCopy protections to the front-end web pages.

Anti-Frame Protection and Joomla's Internal iframes or Modals

Anti-frame protection is compatible with Joomla's internal iframes and modal windows.

AJAX

No issues were detected with AJAX requests and responses. We tested it with CComment, which supports AJAX.

Search Engines

If a current request is received from a search engine, it is possible to deactivate HTML source code protection. You can specify which bots are allowed to access your website's content. Also, it adds the "noarchive" meta tag to hide cached contents on search results.

Disabled Shortcuts

The plugin has individual options for turning off the following shortcuts:

1. Ctrl+U - View page source
2. Ctrl+S - Save web page
3. F12 - Inspect
4. Ctrl+Shift+(I or J) - Developer tools
5. Ctrl+P - Print web page

HTML body source code protection

It provides two protection methods: "Load HTML body with AJAX" and "Encode HTML body and Shuffle". The AJAX-based method is newly proposed. The new protection is more effective against HTML source code saving or viewing than the legacy method.

As noted above, before activating such source code protection, which is called Protect HTML, you should verify the plugin order. This protection modifies or caches HTML body source code. Thus, this plugin should be executed after other system plugins that modify the HTML body source code. If the plugin order is wrong, front-end web pages can be broken or can't be loaded correctly.

If you choose the "Load HTML body with AJAX" option, enable the "Ajax - AntiCopy" plugin. The AJAX-based protection method can automatically fall back to the "Encode HTML body and Shuffle" method for a web page that includes scripts due to possible issues. However, we recommend checking if HTML pages are correctly loaded.

Devtools Detection

The "Try to detect if devtools is open" protection is based on the outer and inner sizes of the browser's window. Outer size represents the size of the whole browser window, including the address bar, bookmarks bar, sidebar, window border, and resizing handles. Inner size is the interior size of the window, including the scroll bars. The inner size is always less than the outer size, and the difference is not much higher. If devtools is open, the difference is greater than the ordinary difference, which is a devtools detection parameter. Such parameter value is represented by pixels or a percent. The following formula defines the percent value. Percent = [(outer - inner) / outer * 100] where [...] means integer part of a number. Finally, if the difference exceeds this parameter, it hides a web page's content.

Notifications

We prefer silent protections. So, only one notification message was kept from previous versions of the plugin, which can be shown on the copy or cut event.

AntiCopy is the Joomla extension.
Copyright (©) 2010 - 2025 Galaa

AntiCopy is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

AntiCopy is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see www.gnu.org/licenses.