Can you use hash navigation without affecting history?

location.replace("#hash_value_here"); 

The above seems to do what you're after.

Edit: It's been a couple years now, and browsers have evolved.

@Luxiyalu's answer is the way to go

--Old Answer--

I too think it is impossible (at this time). But why do you need to change the hash value if you are not going to use it?

I believe the main reason why we use the hash value as programmers is to let the user bookmark our pages, or to save a state in the browser history. If you don't want to do any of this, then just save the state in a variable, and work from there.

I think that the reason to use a hash is to work with a value that is out of our control. If you don't need it, then it probably means you have everything under your control, so just store the state in a variable and work with it. (I like repeating myself)

I hope this helps you out. Maybe there's an easier solution to your problem.

UPDATE: How about this:

1. Setup a first hash, and make sure it gets saved in the browser history.
2. When a new tab gets selected, do window.history.back(1), that will make the history go back from your first init hash.
3. Now you set the new hash, therefore the tabbing will only make one entry in the history.

You'll probably have to use some flags, to know if the current entry can be "deleted" by going back, or if you just skip the first step. And to make sure, that your loading method for the "hash" doesn't execute, when you force the history.back.

location.replace("#hash_value_here"); worked fine for me until I found that it doesn't work on IOS Chrome. In which case, use:

history.replaceState(undefined, undefined, "#hash_value")

history.replaceState() operates exactly like history.pushState() except that replaceState() modifies the current history entry instead of creating a new one.

Remember to keep the # or the last part of the url will be altered.