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How to Stop Image Hot Linking to Your Site.

by John Hocking
9 replies
I was looking for information on how to prevent people of directly linking to images on your site and driving up your bandwith usage.

I found this article on how to use .htaccess and rewriting to either block access or send a replacement image instead.

How to Block Hot Linking and stop Bandwidth Hogging?
#hot #image #linking #site #stop
  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I prefer to play dirty and replace the hotlinked image with something really embarrassing. One guy was hotlinking and I replaced it with an image saying this image was stolen from ... but I've heard stories and actually seen some pretty funny, but quite nasty stuff as far as replacing images go ...
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  • Profile picture of the author sitepaw
    If you are using hosting with cpanel, you should found an icon called "HotLink Protection" and can setup there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Emils
    I had never thought of that this way, but changing the stolen image with an ad of your site is actually a great idea

    Sure, you cannot make the image link to you, bet perhaps it's possible to convince some people to manually type in your address.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
    If it is a real problem just use .htaccess but if it is just a minor annoyance, have some fun with it. I replace the hotlinked images with the filthiest gag-a-maggot porn you can imagine. I had one guy email me once that I was ruining his eBay auctions. waa waa like I care.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Rich Struck View Post

      If it is a real problem just use .htaccess but if it is just a minor annoyance, have some fun with it. I replace the hotlinked images with the filthiest gag-a-maggot porn you can imagine. I had one guy email me once that I was ruining his eBay auctions. waa waa like I care.
      lol ... you're probably the one I saw ... but yeah, replace the image with an ad for your site or do something funny with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author AthirMan
    Try adding watermarks on all images. Worst case is that people hot link your images, but then people come to your site when they see the watermark
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeremiah Walsh
    Someone was actually hotlinking one of my images for an ebay ad. I replaced it with an "adult" image just to be an ass.
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  • Profile picture of the author biggsy
    .htaccess allows you to select specific directories, replace an image with another one (like "this image is stolen!"!), identify specific file types, and control different types of user access (can block IPs and password protect itself).
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