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Question

I have a form where the input fields are saved onChange. In Firefox (5) this works even when the window is closed, but for Chrome and IE it doesn\'t and I need

Answer 1

The reason why nothing happens when you use 'alert()' is probably as explained by MDN: "The HTML specification states that calls to window.alert(), window.confirm(), and window.prompt() methods may be ignored during this event."

But there is also another reason why you might not see the warning at all, whether it calls alert() or not, also explained on the same site:

"... browsers may not display prompts created in beforeunload event handlers unless the page has been interacted with"

That is what I see with current versions of Chrome and FireFox. I open my page which has beforeunload handler set up with this code:

window.addEventListener
('beforeunload'
, function (evt)
  { evt.preventDefault();
    evt.returnValue = 'Hello';
    return "hello 2222"
  }
 );

If I do not click on my page, in other words "do not interact" with it, and click the close-button, the window closes without warning.

But if I click on the page before trying to close the window or tab, I DO get the warning, and can cancel the closing of the window.

So these browsers are "smart" (and user-friendly) in that if you have not done anything with the page, it can not have any user-input that would need saving, so they will close the window without any warnings.

Consider that without this feature any site might selfishly ask you: "Do you really want to leave our site?", when you have already clearly indicated your intention to leave their site.

SEE: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/beforeunload