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I was just browsing through the forum while waiting for someone to hopefully answer a post I just wrote when I came across the following:
[QUOTE]
Wondering how to hide your source code?
Well, give up right now then, because it is absolutely impossible. “No right-click” scripts and other similar scripts will only end up annoying your users in which actually don’t even want to steal your source code or images, but rather just want to casually use their browser features. Doing things like this will, indeed, drive away some users because they will be confused if once they come to your site they won’t be able to use common features that they are usually able to use.
What it really comes down to is this: if the browser can render the page, and source code can be accessed — and there is nothing more to it. Doing things like using JavaScript to generate the the source code (and attempt to obfuscate it), you are making the page inaccessible to approximately 9% of your visitors (that includes search engines as well). As previously mentioned, “no right-click” scripts are also ineffective because there are several other ways to obtain source without the right-click context menu and moreover, JavaScript can be disabled.
The source code of your site will always be accessible no matter what, it simply isn’t worth trying to hide. Accept that it is impossible and simply don’t waste your time trying to prevent people from accessing it, because you can’t. The more accessible and usable your site is, the more people will be able to use and enjoy your site.
In the case of images, they can also easily be taken from a site no matter what kind of “no right-click” or other scripts you have applied. However, the most practical thing to do is to watermark your images. This will not completely prevent people from attempting to steal it, but it should cut down on the number of people that try to take your images because now there is something on the image that explictly defines it as your work.
And I thought to myself, he’s right but maybe hiding the source is possible to a certain degree.
Not even an hour ago I implemented something to hide emails from sniffer bots while still allowing the page viewer to read it normally and have the default behaviour of a mailto: link. And I think a portion of what I did might be applicable here.
If, once you’ve finished writing all your code and saved all your files and before you upload them to your server, you create a server-side script, small application, maybe even a javascript file (that’s about as far as I can go to keep this post on the “javascript” subject) to transfrom all (or maybe even some) of the characters in your file to hexadecimal code it should still render correctly in any browser while effectively hiding your code from the faint of heart. Boy, that was a run-on sentence.
Anyway, I am in no way a proponent of hiding web page source code. Actually I am very much against it. But, I saw the sticky and got to thinking maybe it’s possible.
I’ve actually done no testing of this but, based on how my email hiding technique worked, I don’t see why this shouldn’t work either. If anyone actually does try this I’d love to hear if it does.
Douglas