How can I prevent saving/downloading web page?

Question

I was wondering if there was a way to prevent a user from saving/downloading a web page? Specifically, I mean not letting them have access to the data displayed through my web application on their own machine?

I've heard that this is not possible since the browser must have access to the source code/data, but at the same time, I've noticed that if I to my gmail account, open an email, save the page, but when I try to open that page on my computer, it doesn't work. Furthermore, if I click "view source", I can see that even the source does not display the entire email message, even though the email is opened in my browser.

How it's possible for gmail to prevent me from seeing that email data?

Answer 1

Thats what called rendering pages using dynamic data without refreshing page (AJAX). The entire page source code is not downloaded in one go and components within the page request data asynchronously to display content. Try googling it and you will find more information.

Answer 2

In View source you can only see the HTML, CSS, JavaScript codes. No one can copy any dynamic code (PHP) from view source.

You can't stop anyone to see your html,css code in browser, as we are having view source option.

Maximum what you can do is disable right click on your page. Thant can be done through JavaScript.