Disable Indexes using .htaccess


I have several personal websites on a shared server where indexes are turned on by default in Apache. That is simply annoying, because I hate having stray empty index.html files sitting all over the place. I suppose I could just leave the indexes on but I dislike the idea of anyone in the world being able to just peek into folders, even if it is unlikely they will find anything very interesting, you just never know. They might have some hole into the system. Anyways, if you are like me the easiest way of getting rid of indexes is using one line in an .htaccess file in the root folder:

Options -Indexes

Now if a folder does not have an index.html file the server will respond with a 404 file not found error and send people your error page. Amazing how that one simple line can save time and keep you from having to go and create index.html files in all those folders you don’t want people poking around in.

If you are still wondering why you would want to do this take a read through this post titled ”Find almost any kind of Ebook or File Online” over at Earners Blog. One line in the .htaccess file stops that from happening.

Categories: web-programming 
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