Putting An End To Hotlinking

[aquamarine]

Since I've come into a bit of popularity and controversy over a couple of my pictures on a few other forums, many people are hotlinking. I am interested in putting up a script or something similar that would end hot-linking.

Example: Try and hotlink from Angelfire.com and it will just show a picture of their banner.. something like that.

Now, the main question is this.... if I install such a script (or something of similar importance), will I be able to over-ride it and hot-link or will I too be blocked?

Much appreciated

[plaid_knight]

If you didn't want to share them, why did you
upload them to the internet?

[GuyJean]

I am interested in putting up a script or something similar that would end hot-linking.

Your hosting company might have some way of 'hotlink protection'; mine does. The protection doesn't allow any other domain to hotlink specified types of files.. Don't know the script, but you could probably find something about it with a googling..

GJ

[aquamarine]

If you didn't want to share them, why did you
upload them to the internet?

In some cases they are being hotlinked and used out of context.

In other cases, I would prefer to share them with only those I see fit. If they want to download the file and host it on their own server, so be it.

[FG Lurker]

I'm no web guru but you should be able to do this with PHP and a referer check.

Direct links to the photos will show different referer info than if they are pulled as part of one of your pages.

[FG Lurker]

Forgot to answer the 2nd part of your question...

With a PHP script you can choose which referers are acceptable and which ones are not. So if you want to be able to link photos from FG then you can allow for that in the script.

In such a case though anyone could post direct links to your photos on FG, not only you. The other downside is that if you wish to post on an additional site you will need to add it to the script too (or set things up via database).

[sirwanksalot]

Since I've come into a bit of popularity and controversy over a couple of my pictures on a few other forums, many people are hotlinking. I am interested in putting up a script or something similar that would end hot-linking.

Example: Try and hotlink from Angelfire.com and it will just show a picture of their banner.. something like that.

Now, the main question is this.... if I install such a script (or something of similar importance), will I be able to over-ride it and hot-link or will I too be blocked?

Much appreciated

I can see that you are hotlinking your avatar to pozland.com

[Charles]

Your server is most likely running Apache (most servers do) so you can easily stop hot-linking with htaccess and mod_rewrite. Yes, you can allow certain servers to override. I set this up on my server and it works like a charm.

Read this:

http://help.powweb.com/tutorials/htaccess/antileech.php

Of course you will have to check with your host to see if they have enabled mod_rewrite.

[Big Booger]

If you need to hotlink, why not just use a service like imageshack? It's simple and free.

http://www.imageshack.us/

That way any image you post won't be hosted by you.

[aquamarine]

Thanks Booger, Charles & Lurker

SirWanks: Yes I am hotlinking my avatar, is that a problem that you have?

I am not looking for HOW to hotlink... you must have mis-understood my request, I'm looking for a way that I SELECT what is hotlinked and what is not.

If you really have issues with my choices for my own website and my bandwith, then I do invite you to send me some money and help me pay the monthly bill, then I will quite gladly give you a say in what I do with my webspace.

Feel free to PM me and I'll send you my PayPal account details.

[burachan]

Your server is most likely running Apache (most servers do) so you can easily stop hot-linking with htaccess and mod_rewrite. Yes, you can allow certain servers to override. I set this up on my server and it works like a charm.

And if your web hosting providor offers a control panel (like cPanel) then it can be set up in less than a minute. You list the domains that are allowed to hot link and everything else gets rejected.

Shameless pitch:
Hardfocus offers cPanel

[Andocrates]

I just change the name of the image. But I'm old-school :P

[GuyJean]

I just change the name of the image. But I'm old-school :P

Yeah, sometimes I change the hotlinked image to an advertisement for my site..

GJ

[Charles]

I just change the name of the image. But I'm old-school :P

Yeah, sometimes I change the hotlinked image to an advertisement for my site..

GJ

That's what mod_rewrite is for. You can relink dynamically, so any hotlinked image can be diverted to any image you like. I love mod_rewrite.

[GuyJean]

That's what mod_rewrite is for. You can relink dynamically, so any hotlinked image can be diverted to any image you like. I love mod_rewrite.

Ooooh.. That sounds good. It would make me want people to hotlink.

GJ

[Charles]

That's what mod_rewrite is for. You can relink dynamically, so any hotlinked image can be diverted to any image you like. I love mod_rewrite.

Ooooh.. That sounds good. It would make me want people to hotlink. ]
Yep, mod_rewrite is very flexible. Those assholes at Free Republic used to hotlink to pics on my site, so I set a rule so whenever the referer is freerepublic.com, the image gets substituted for a .gif that's 20 pixels high and 10,000 pixels wide. That really screws with their page layout.
But now I just deny every link that wasn't refered from within my own domain, that ends all hotlinks.

[aquamarine]

Have I mentioned lately that you guys are amazing?

I'll be checking out all of my options later this evening after work. HOpefully there's some! GuyJean, I too used to do that when I found an un-wanted hot-link and ended up changing the picture to something a little more foul.