Just wondering how I can solve a little problem.

I have a rewrite rule in my .htaccess file which prevents people hotlinking to images on my site. They get a small 'hotlinking not allowed' image.

However, people reading the site via their RSS reader or online via somewhere like Bloglines don't see the pictures.

Is there any way of allowing these people to see the images without turning off the hotlinking prevention altogether?

I have tried to add the RSS url to the list of approved referrers but that doesn't work.

Any tips much appreciated. Thanks.

Include "exceptions" in your anti-hotlinking lines. Something like:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://numeric.ip/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://of.blogger/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://or.seach.engine.cache/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://known.blogname.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://good.inlink.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.ownsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.friendsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|gif)$ http://www.ownsite.com/hotlink.png [R,NC]
Hope that helps a bit.

Eliz.