Damn. How I hoped it would never come this far. I’m turning off the full-feed because some spamlogs are stealing and duplicating my entire content, including the images. I’m hosting everything myself and I can manage the bandwith so far. Even when I got Farked and pulled 60.000 unique hits a day, there was not a cloud in the sky. But I hate it when my entire content is stolen and reproduced elsewhere. Seriously, I do. I’m not a free image host.
I can’t even begin to count the amount of hotlinked images that appear on myspace or msn spaces. I get about a thousand hits a day averagely from places that don’t link back while featuring my images. That genuinely sucks. I can’t do anything about it yet, except for renaming the images and putting something dirty in place to make a point. I’m looking for something I can install on the server that blocks external image requests. If anyone has an idea, drop a line, I’ll be happy to try.
So, sorry for the full feed readers. Truly I am. But for now this seems to be the only way out. I’m working on it. Hope to come up with a decent answer and switch back to full feed asap, but these spammers are getting on my nerves.
Update: Edited the .htaccess and secured all images. Full feed will stay online.
Check this out to see how well it works :)
mf
August 5, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Had the same problem a few years ago and changed my .htaccess:
marketingfacts.nl/…/htaccess_disable_hotlinking_code_generator_1/
Coolz0r
August 5, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Ahhh. Wonderful. Now I can still offer full feeds :) Thanks Marco !!! You’re one in a million.
Christian
August 6, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Not too sure about the wonderfull part, I also get the “no hotlinking” image in my feedreader
Big Blogger
August 6, 2006 at 2:51 pm
that was indeed the solution. But now in bloglines, also is showed that hotlinking is not allowed, and no, people will not view your content on your site i presume.
So pelase think about bloglines.
Coolz0r
August 6, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Hmmmm. I’ll try to figure out a way. Maybe if I include bloglines in the ‘allowed’ domains. But then people should post their feedreaders here so I can include those as well. Sorry about the mess… I just needed to figure out a way. Allow me a few days to set it up please :) thanks.
I tested it with RSS Bandit, and I get the images in the feed. I presumed it would work well for all other readers as well. Apparently that’s not the case. I’m working on it.
B.V.L.G.
August 6, 2006 at 8:09 pm
I read a lot of feeds in Bloglines. I would appreciate it if you would allow images to appear again in Bloglines. Apparantly Marco Derksen from Marketingfacts allowed Bloglines someone asked for it (see the original link).
Frits
August 6, 2006 at 8:18 pm
I’m using Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com/) as feedreader and am getting the ‘not hotlinking’ image replacements too. Would appreciate it if you’d add Netvibes to the allowed domains.
This must be only the second time I see your site, and I’ve been reading your posts for months allready via my feeds :)
lars koudal
August 6, 2006 at 8:33 pm
I had the same problem as you, although on a much smaller scale, so I implemented a slightly nastier response:
http://www.koudal.dk/hotlink-revenge-dont-steal-bandwidth
I should note, that when using your RSS feed via RSSOwl, it works just fine, I dont have anyp problems with the images.
Dean
August 6, 2006 at 8:35 pm
This post made me sad until I saw your update. Everything works fine in my RSS reader (Netvibes).
Coolz0r
August 6, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Added domains: bloglines.com / netvibes.com hope that works now. Please ping me about it. Thanks
B.V.L.G
August 7, 2006 at 7:59 am
Bloglines shows the pictures now, thanks for the change.
stijn
August 8, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I’m a happy netvibes user and your blog reader. Good to see you got it worked out. Keep up the excellent and inspiring work.
.: On Tokyo Time :. » Cutting Down On Feeds - Getting My Time Back
October 11, 2006 at 6:48 am
[...] Coolz0r: He (can’t find his name on the site) does a good job at highlighting ads. However ever since the hotlink protection, the feed doesn’t show images anymore in my feed reader. Clicking through, then clicking on the headline and then hitting F5 has become to tedious. See screenshot below. [...]