Is it necessary to authenticate with a username and password on the SMTP server to prevent unwanted lines from being added to emails sent via PHP?
To prevent unwanted lines from being added to emails sent via PHP, it is not necessary to authenticate with a username and password on the SMTP server. Instead, you can sanitize and validate user input before using it in the email content to ensure that only legitimate content is included in the email.
// Sanitize and validate user input
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$message = filter_var($_POST['message'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
// Send email with sanitized input
$to = "recipient@example.com";
$subject = "Subject";
$headers = "From: " . $email;
$body = $message;
mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers);