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  • 13
    "How do websites block marking of text" - They set style.userSelect to none.
    – user766703
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 9:52
  • 7
    @Xen2050 Mostly I don't care about copying text. I just love the ability to mark phrases and terms and search for it on Google with just a click of the mouse (doubleclick word, rightclick "Search Google..."). I could go into the source (if it's clean source at all) and scan for the word, copy it, paste in Google but well... as said this is just an annoyance. Some1 who wants to copy your website text can do it anyhow but someone who just wants a comfortable workflow gets hindered.
    – user6329530
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 13:47
  • 153
    Can we just take a moment and sympathize for all the delusional web developers out there who think this is a good security measure?
    – MCMastery
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 15:17
  • 43
    @MCMastery Or worse, the developers who know it's terrible but are told they have to do it anyway. Most of the time they are worried about people stealing content. Then you've got sites like SO who are getting scraped/stolen from all the time... but commercially viable. Turns out alienating your userbase is bad for business. Who would have thought?!
    – corsiKa
    Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 20:39
  • 4
    @MCMastery - the goal, as usual, is not to be faster than the dinosaur. The goal is to be faster than the dude next to you. Just as a goal of a lock isn't to defeat a burglar, it's to introduce more friction for them to go burgle someone else. Or in other words, the goal of the measure is not to introduce bulletproof security; it's to introduce enough friction to (a) deter casual copier and (b) make a less casual copier more interested in less-work-required-to-copy alternative sites.
    – DVK
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 21:12