protect html files?

hi all

which is the best way to protect html files from being stolen(downloaded)? Or if they are being downloaded which is the best way to encrypt them?
i have some templates in html and css. many customers wants to see them live. but i can't do that for security reasons. i would like to protect the files from being downloaded or in case they still are i would like to protect the content.
thanks

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Free Web 2.0 Templates, Icons, Vectors

the problem with html files is that there is no way to protect them, no matter what you do it is always possible to steal them, so i would honestly not do it at all, simply because if you did, you will never get sales

if you ever think you found a solution, i would be interested to test it

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My Recipe forum... For all your food needs

Yeah, when you view them in your browser... they've already been downloaded

Theres nothing you can really do.., however if the templates use images, you could disable hotlinking on the server (theres normally an option). This stops them going directly to the image to download them (works best on background images because you can't save as) but like everything else... there's a way around this.

You just have to get more sales than thefts, so the sales compensate

As everyone says, nothing you can do. Disabling hotlinking is as close as you can get really.

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what you could do is make flash versions of the templates,

have them react the same way when clicked etc as if it was a html file, that way they get their preview and you dont expose any code

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My Recipe forum... For all your food needs

If you just need to show your client the visual layout i.e. you don't need working links etc. Why not create a gif or jpg image of the site?

Flash files can be downloaded, and decrypted etc. etc.

It's even easier if they use xml feeds (alot of people stealing music off myspace that way).

I'd say the screenshot is the best idea, however it doesn't really do it justice in some circumstances.

You could watermark all images (can be erased with out too much difficulty).

Or you could watermark an entire page with and transparent overlay (very ineffective).

Other than them, i can't think of anything =/

Possibly have the preview in an iframe and disallow direct access to the template (i.e the request has to be sent by the page with the iframe).

Not sure how well that would work though?

I wonder if anyone else has any other ideas?

how do u download flash files then

http://www.sothink.com/product/flashdecompiler/

Just one of many pieces of software for that sort of thing, they're not 100% accurate mind.

I personally detest most flash (most not all) so i don't use it, and thus i'd have no use for it.

is there a free version

Not that i know of, there probably is... but how accurate it would be i don't know?

It doesn't reproduce the original .fla file, only it's interperation of what it thinks the original .fla file would of been.