Beforeunload event not working as I think it should

Question

I want a user to be presented with a message when he tries to leave my page. My page consists of a form and some links (menu's etc). My jQuery code is the following

$(document).ready(function(){
    $(window).bind('beforeunload', function(e){
        answer=confirm('Do you want to go?');
        if (answer===false){
            e.preventDefault();
        }
    });
});

But when I click on one of the links the user navigates outside the page and no confirm dialog appears no nothing. Have I misunderstood the beforeunload event?

Answer 1

unfortunately, there is no way to override the default behaviour. Most browsers will just display the returnValue of the event, accompanied by an 'OK'/'Leave page' and 'Cancel' button. You can set that message though:

window.onbeforeunload = function (e) {
        var e = e || window.event;
        // For IE and Firefox prior to version 4
        if (e) {
            e.returnValue = 'Hey, you are leaving. Do you want to continue?';
        }
        //you can do some last minute scripting here
        // For Safari
        return 'Hey, you are leaving. Do you want to continue?';
};

As suggested by Jason P, read more on it here