Posted by Zoe Brown on 05/12/07 16:04

> Then, you have a file called "streamFile.php".... your user clicks on
> the link "streamFile.php?key=3197fhduabsd", and your script looks up the
> file according to the key, then uses readfile(); or a custom function to
> stream the file to the browser....

great, can you tell me a bit more about streaming the file to the browser,
would this work for pdfs ? i presume this wont mean that they will abel to
rightclick and download though ?

but isn't you approach just as risky as having the pdf file in the public
domain with a random name.

> Or, you could go with .htaccess entirely. But using a combo of
> .htaccess, sessions and databases to control user access is more often a
> headache than not. And asking people to enter a username/password more
> than once is incredibly annoying and bad user interface design.

Thanks for your input, I agree 100%. I thought that the .htaccess thing was
the right way forward but am now reconsidering.
Thanks again.

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