Hotlinking

Hotlinking (also known as leeching) is when another website links directly to your downloadable content. For a variety of reasons, you probably don't want your content to be downloadable from other websites.

Prevented by default since v2.3 (in Craft 4) and v3.1 (in Craft 5)

Once hotlink prevention was introduced, prevention became the default behavior for all new links.

Allowing Hotlinks

Hotlinking from other websites is forbidden by default. When necessary, there are two ways to configure hotlinking:

Option 1 - Configure availability per each link

For maximum control, configure the availability of individual links when creating each token.

Use the allowHotlinks option to configure exactly how hotlinks should be allowed.

Option 2 - Configure availability globally via plugin's Settings

For global control, edit the plugin's Settings page. Set the "Allow Hotlinks" field to manage the availability of all links in the system.

If the option to "only hotlink from specified sites" is selected, you'll then be prompted to specify a whitelist of friendly domains.