Hey

Im not sure if this is possible or what the best way/language to use if it is but hopefully you guys can help.

I want to be able to let users download specific files but not let them see where they are coming from - this is because i dont want users to be able to guess a file name and download a file without going through the correct process (i.e. paying for it)

Hope this is clear enough and any help or pointers in the right direction are welcome.

Cheers
Stoot

What server side language are you using? With ASP.NET you can use BinaryWrite to write the contents of that file to the client. You can then add code into that ASP.NET file to authenticate the user before it writes the file. Here's a thread with some example code on it:

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/showthread.php?t=30030

Thanks, I'm using PHP - so it'd be great if anyone knew a solution using it!

Thanks for the link - ill try and search more thoroughly and turn up something.

Cheers
Stoot

www.payloadz.com

I have just used this for a a similar purpose. Someone pays (has to be thorugh paypal) and then gets a download link, which is masked! Really handy I tell ya. You store the files on your server and then it either provides a masked link to the address, or you can create a paid for account with them and upload your stuff onto their servers.

I give it 99 outta 100 for ease of use! Hope it helps.

Almost gave a you a solution to save uploads untill I re-read it.

Well i suppose you could store the path in your DB and have some reference linking it to the corrrect row in the DB.

They click the link the script gets the path and allows a down load, buety here is you can increment a counter in the DB to show how many downloads its had.

Infact thats probably what I would do.

<a href="{site}?download=1>download</a>

select path from downloads where id=$_get['downloads'];

As for initiating a save box, perhaps throw a header("Location:" . $row['path']) assuming your path contains the file name + extension. This should then open up the save box and allow you to save the file.

Of course I have not tried this (no need myself) but it looks sound and it would work methinks.

Ibbo