Response.Redirect vs Server.Transfer

Will · July 5th, 2010, 11:00 AM

I have a page in a website I am working on which when a user completes a form I want the page to change to another page.

The page they are redirected to is only available once the form has been submitted and this authentication works by creating a cookie and then checking to see if that cookie exists when a user requests that page. This is to prevent users from having to fill out the form multiple times to view this extra page.

Should I be redirecting the user using Response.Redirect or Server.Transfer? I have set it up initially so that the user is redirected using Response.Redirect but I have thought that perhaps it might be better to use Server.Transfer as this would keep the url in the address bar the same meaning there would be less attempts at requesting the page without first filling in the form.

The page does check to see if the cookie exists on load and if it doesn't it redirects to the page containing the form. This also uses Response.Redirect but should this use Server.Transfer as well?

Cheers

Imar · July 5th, 2010, 02:33 PM

Hi Will,

I don't like the idea of security by obscurity very much. If you protected the target page (as you've done) there's no need to hide it.

So, you can use both solutions. Using Response.Redirect makes it easier to bookmark the target page, while Server.Transfer makes it easier to target the first. I guess it all depends on where you want your users to return to.

Cheers,

Imar

Will · July 5th, 2010, 03:59 PM

Cheers for the reply.

I guess Response.Redirect would be better so they can then bookmark the resources page. But the form page auto redirects if the cookie is present anyway but I suppose allowing the user to omit that redirection would improve the performance of the site.

Cheers