Decoding Javascript

Need to decode a javascript encoded web page?

Follow these instructions to add a bookmark to either Mozilla or IE which will decode a javascript encoded page to show you what the browser is actually rendering. I prefer Mozilla for this as it has features such as being able to show frame contents in a window and can turn javascript off without having to reload the page.

For Mozilla 1.2.1:

Select Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks...
File -> New -> Bookmark
Enter 'Decode Javascript' as the name
Cut and paste all the javascript below in as the Location
Press OK to create the bookmark, close the Bookmark manager

For IE 6:

Got to any page then select Favorites -> Add to Favorites...
Enter 'Decode Javascript' as the name
Press OK to create the Favorites entry
Select Favorites then right click on the entry you just created, select Properties
Cut and paste all the javascript below in as the URL, you can also set up a keyboard shortcut at this point
Press OK and select 'Yes' when it queries it

To activate it just select the bookmark while looking at an encoded page.

javascript:h=document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].innerHTML;function disp(h){h=h.replace(/</g, '\n<');h=h.replace(/>/g,'>');document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].innerHTML='<pre><html>'+h.replace(/(\n|\r)+/g,'\n')+'</html></pre>';}void(disp(h));
Note: This code replaces the text in the window with the source but the original javascript will stay active. That means that if the page prevents you from doing things like highlighting text then you may have to disable javascript. In Mozilla you do that with Edit -> Preferences... -> Advanced -> Scripts & Plugins -> Navigator (tickbox).

Another useful tip is that in Mozilla if you save the page to disk using File -> Save Page As... then it will save the decoded javascript in the file. You don't need the above bookmark trick for that.

Code by Kicken ( slick @ aoeex.com )
Mail corrections or comments to Sapient.Fridge@spamsites.org