[javascript] Confirmation before closing of tab/browser

The shortest solution for the year 2020 (for those happy people who don't need to support IE)

Tested in Chrome, Firefox, Safari.

function onBeforeUnload(e) {
    if (thereAreUnsavedChanges()) {
        e.preventDefault();
        e.returnValue = '';
        return;
    }

    delete e['returnValue'];
}

window.addEventListener('beforeunload', onBeforeUnload);

Actually no one modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) displays the "return value" as a question to user. Instead they show their own confirmation text (it depends on browser). But we still need to return some (even empty) string to trigger that confirmation on Chrome.

More explanations see on MDN here and here.