How to restrict the download of all files in a folder?

Question

I have several .pdb files, which should be viewed in my website by clicking a link on a page. But when a pdf file opens, in the address bar it is visible the directory where all .pdf files reside. SO if the user will write in address bar http://mySite.com/myDir he will see and be able to download all files at once. But I don't want! When I [chmod 644 myDir], the files become not visible even for my site - i.e. you can not open them by clicking the link I have mentioned. How to solve this problem?

Answer 1

Using .htaccess you can block it like this:

Options -Indexes

If you want to prevent users from being able to access those files without first being authenticated see this answer.

Answer 2

You should disallow directory browsing. There are a few ways you could to that, depending upon what sort of access you have to the server, but using htaccess is the simplest.

Answer 3

Create an empty file named 'index.html' in your myDir folder. Anyone visiting that folder will then see a blank screen instead of a directory listing.