What are the potential drawbacks of using .htaccess to block the downloading of HTML files by grabbers?

Using .htaccess to block the downloading of HTML files by grabbers can potentially slow down the website's performance as each request has to be checked against the rules in the .htaccess file. Additionally, it may not be foolproof as determined grabbers can find ways to bypass these restrictions. A more effective solution would be to implement server-side validation in the form of PHP code to check and control access to the HTML files. 

<?php
// Check if the request is coming from a legitimate source
if($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] != 'YourLegitimateUserAgent') {
    header('HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden');
    exit;
}

// Serve the HTML file if the request is valid
$file = 'yourfile.html';
if(file_exists($file)) {
    header('Content-Type: text/html');
    readfile($file);
} else {
    header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
}

Keywords

.htaccess downloading HTML files grabbers drawbacks

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