How to prevent a file from direct URL Access?

Question

I\'m using Apache and I have a sample web folder on my Local Host, like:

      http://localhost/test/

---

Files in th

Answer 1

rosipov's rule works great!

I use it on live sites to display a blank or special message ;) in place of a direct access attempt to files I'd rather to protect a bit from direct view. I think it's more fun than a 403 Forbidden.

So taking rosipov's rule to redirect any direct request to {gif,jpg,js,txt} files to 'messageforcurious' :

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domain\.ltd [NC] 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domain\.ltd.*$ [NC] 
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|js|txt)$ /messageforcurious [L]

I see it as a polite way to disallow direct acces to, say, a CMS sensible files like xml, javascript... with security in mind: To all these bots scrawling the web nowadays, I wonder what their algo will make from my 'messageforcurious'.