ichthyous - 2:02 pm on Feb 7, 2005 (gmt 0)

"If one version blocks image requests from your own URL, at least that proves that mod_rewrite is functioning on your server. What this hints at is that the version that blocks your own referrer is blocking blank referrer requests (and this is what happens when you do that), whereas the other version allows blank referrer requests (which is what you must do in order to avoid such problems). This second approach obviously has a hole in it, but it is the best you can do, because the HTTP_REFERRER header is notoriously unreliable. Many ISP caches (e.g. AOL) block it, and many PC security packages like Norton Internet Security block it. So, blank referrers must be allowed. If you allow blank referrers, then some proportion of the hotlink requests will work. But others won't."

I', not sure I understand all of it, but this morning when I went to check the pages which were hotlinking again, all of my images were there. I thought that maybe I had done something to the code, but it was fine. I turned off my firewall and lo and behold there was the new swapped hotlink gif. Would this be the case with most people...doesn't it really almost negate the effectiveness of the code, or will they all see the new hotlink GIF once the server's cache has updated?