return false
from within a jQuery event handler is effectively the same as calling both e.preventDefault
and e.stopPropagation
on the passed jQuery.Event object.
e.preventDefault()
will prevent the default event from occuring, e.stopPropagation()
will prevent the event from bubbling up and return false
will do both. Note that this behaviour differs from normal (non-jQuery) event handlers, in which, notably, return false
does not stop the event from bubbling up.
Source: John Resig
Any benefit to using event.preventDefault() over "return false" to cancel out an href click?