Another hotlinker caught red handed |
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This post is aimed at webmasters, bloggers, and/or anybody who uses images on websites, readers that don’t fit into this any of these categories can comfortably move on as none of this applies. You won’t miss anything.
From time to time the subject of hotlinking arises. Hotlinking is the act of linking to an image from another server or website on your webpage/blog. If this is done with the siteowner’s permission than this is ok but most of the time it’s done without permisison and that’s bandwidth theft.
At some of our websites — it sort of depends on traffic levels to be frank — we do not block hotlinking, but at MakeYouGoHmm we do not allow third party hotlinking without permission. Some sites have asked and been denied, some have asked and been accepted. Some aggregators are allowed, some are not. We’d be happy to publish the current list (htaccess code) for all to see/use if you like on your own blogs/sites if enough folks are interested, just use the comments and/or trackback and notify us.
The picture above shows what happens to unauthorized hotlinking from here. Not posting this to be some kind of a-hole, but to help educate (note this post was placed under “How To” category so that it can be an informative message to new webmasters and bloggers not to make this mistake). Some programs make it all too easy to steal other people’s bandwidth without even realizing one is doing that, so caution is in order.
I found the name used by this hotlinker worthy of a chuckle: “Resistance.”
Resistance is futile. And what the heck is a satanic pacificist? It’s also good to know that the persuasion of this user is being an anarchist.
Seriously fellow webmaster/blogger friends, please don’t hotlink to images, banners, buttons, and/or graphics without the siteowner’s permission. Somebody has to pay for the bandwidth. When in doubt, ask.
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- The biggest problem with AllYouCanUpload
- Roasting Seattle bloggers
I use NewsGator and images are blocked in that. It’s very frustrating!
Comment by Chris Davies — September 23, 2005 @ 6:52 am PST
Newsgator what, Chris? Newsgator online is not blocked and hasn’t been for quite some time. I just verified that with my Newsgator online account. Newsgator in your email client would probably have the images blocked, yes. Is that what you are talking about?
Comment by TDavid — September 23, 2005 @ 7:44 am PST
Oh! I’m using Newsgator online. That’s confusing.
Comment by Chris Davies — September 23, 2005 @ 8:09 am PST
Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the feed in newsgator, maybe, or check with a different browser (firefox, opera — it’s free now). Newsgator is definitely allowed and you should be seeing all images and full text. I just tried from another machine in the lab that has never been to newsgator and images showed up there too, once logged in, unblocked
Comment by TDavid — September 23, 2005 @ 8:36 am PST
Chris - I just realized something that I didn’t know when checking referrer stats. Are you from the UK? The UK version of newsgator hails from a slightly different URL: newsgator.co.uk (instead of newsgator.com) — and we were blocking that. Sorry if that included you! I have now added that domain to the list. It is no longer blocked.
Refresh your browser and let me know: are you seeing the images now?
Comment by TDavid — September 23, 2005 @ 9:48 am PST
Yes, I’m in the UK - and I can see the images now! Does this mean I’m your only Newsgator-using UK reader or just the most vocal?
Comment by Chris Davies — September 23, 2005 @ 10:27 am PST
There were several hits in the ref logs for the hour, so I doubt you are the only one, but you are the only one who has reported this, so thank you for allowing me to fix
Comment by TDavid — September 23, 2005 @ 11:44 am PST
That’s good to know you have that fixed. Also brings up a point that some larger sites do have have differing country code extentions ( .co.uk, .it, .de ). And we should watch and check for these issues.
Comment by orangecrush — September 24, 2005 @ 11:27 pm PST
[…] Good premise for a simple, but usuable service, but I wonder how long these images are hosted? And I wonder if they are linked up on a really busy forum or website what sort of slow-down will be incurred? Probably better in that case to copy the image and use it on your own server so as to not hotlink the hidetext service. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Hidetext text to image generator — September 28, 2005 @ 9:11 am PST
[…] I don’t like unauthorized hotlinking either, but definitely wouldn’t have gone that far with people at a company I used to work at. […]
Pingback by Niall Kennedy uses porn image to teach Microsoft blog hotlinking lesson » Make You Go Hmm — December 4, 2006 @ 9:59 pm PST