.htaccess ban "Mozilla" string

.htaccess ban

[vaggos]

Greetings,

I would like to find a way to block someone that is using an utility to crawl my website and is using "Mozilla" as refering browser, usually every visitor it displays like "Mozilla/5.0" for example I have never seen "Mozilla". Can I ban this string and do you think will be safe to block it?

Thank you

[phranque]

not too many legit user agents are called exactly "Mozilla", so i think you are safe blocking it.
you could try this in your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
#
# Block unwelcome user agent
RewriteCond %{HTTP_user_agent} ^Mozilla$
RewriteRule .* - [F]

[vaggos]

It works it solved my problem.

Thank you very much for your help :)

[phranque]

oh, and welcome to WebmasterWorld, vaggos!

[g1smd]

Err. Many browsers use Mozilla in the UA string.

[mozilla.org...]

<edit>I see now that you mean *just* "Mozilla" and nothing else.</edit>

[phranque]

<edit>I see now that you mean *just* "Mozilla" and nothing else.</edit>

yes - that's why the UA string is anchored at both ends...

RewriteCond %{HTTP_user_agent} ^Mozilla$

[g1smd]

I read several hundred forum and blog threads per day, so just occasionally misread or misunderstand one.

No harm done.