Topic: Hotlinking grief?

[JonLeung]

Is the hotlinking prevention here problematic?



If I recall, someone on these forums helped me with including the hotlinking prevention code (perhaps I'll merge this topic with that one later), since GoDaddy doesn't have that feature for whatever reason.



Now I've seen before some people absolutely unable to access the site because with whatever settings they have in their browser, EVERY image appears as the "No Hotlinking" image.  I would hate to think that some prospective new visitors might never come back because they don't see anything the first time, or after repeated attempts.



Yesterday I received an email from someone who was apparently referencing the first stage of Super Mario Bros. 3 (for LittleBigPlanet; neat idea).  When he went to revisit it, I'm guessing it was no longer in his cache, so using the direct link to the URL brought up the "No Hotlinking" image.



I thought his choice of words made his email sound particularly rude, and I would still need to prevent hotlinking, but I might as well ask if the hotlinking prevention as it is now causes anyone else any grief.

[Revned]

It used to cause problems for me when I used Safari, but it seems to work fine in Firefox nowadays.

[Will]

I really don't think people should be in favour of hotlinking. You are doing the right thing I'm sure. I don't know about how sensitive the security system is. As soon as the website gets makeovers, hopefully the complaints will cease. I never had a problem looking at the maps I wanted to...yet.

[DarkWolf]

My guess is that you don't allow null referrers.  That's probably why some people are getting the hotlink image unintentionally.  You may still get some hotlinking by allowing null referrers, but you can spoof the referrer headers if you are really determined anyway.

[marioman]

I get it every once in a while, but it is always with the images on the front page and not the maps.

[Maxim]

If every image is blocked it's often because they've got their browser set to block image referers. Allowing null referers is the best option really - people can bookmark an image directly, but they can't link to it reliably from anywhere off-site.