FAQ:
Common FAQ of AntsSoft Software ProductsQ: Will HTML Protector destroy all my hard work if I make a mistake when using it?
A: HTML Protector supports three kinds of output mode: "Overwrite existing files", "Copy to the following folder" and "Create new protected file". These last two modes don't modify your original HTML page, but generate a new one instead. But, "Overwrite existing files" mode is dangerous for careless user, because with this mode your original HTML files will be overwritten after protection.
1) Please always keep backup copy of your original pages in hand before starting protection with HTML Protector.
2) Don't use "Overwrite existing files" mode, unless you know what you are doing very well.
3) If you want to select "Overwrite existing files" mode, please enable any of "Save backup copies" option below at the same.
4) At the worst, if your web pages have been encrypted by HTML Protector and you can't recover them for later update, you may send these files to our support team. We will help you to recover them if possible.
Q: I protected a number of pages, and now I do not have original pages. Can I reverse the protected pages?
A: If you have enabled "Save backup copies" option when using "Overwrite existing files" mode, you may find a file named as "*.bak" in your protected HTML directory after protection. To reverse the encryption, just rename this .bak file to its original filename.
If these web pages are really very important to you and you can't find any backup in your hand, you may send these files to us. Our developer will try to recover them for you.
Q: Will the text "This webpage is protected by HTML Protector" still show up on my pages after I purchase HTML Protector?
A: The words like "This webpage is protected by HTML Protector" are only available with unregistered version. It will not be added to protected pages with registered version after protection. We offer unconditional 30-days money back to all purchases. If you dislike HTML Protector after purchase in 30 days, we will issue refund for your payment upon your request.
Q: How does encrypting my page with HTML Protector effect how search engines see it?
A: All search engines will simply ignore the JavaScript code that is added to your page, so all the options in "Meta Tag", "Script", and "Source Code" tabs won't affect your search engine ranking at all. Be sure you choose your "encryption mode" on the "Encryption" tab carefully, try and keep the following in mind:
1) "Protect email links" should have no effect on your search engine rankings;
2) "Protect all links" will make search engine spiders unable to follow the links on your pages, but it should not affect the ranking of the page;
3) "Protect BODY section" will cause search engine spiders to not be able to index the content between BODY tags. But all content between HEAD tags (including meta keywords, and etc...) will be kept untouched after encryption process. In that case, search engine bots can still read all meta tags of your protected page without any problem.
4) "Protect Entire Page" will cause search engine spiders to not be able to index the page totally, which would affect your rankings at most extent.
5) If you want search engine to index content of your pages, you may even set "Encryption Mode" as "Protect Nothing". With this mode, the source code of your pages will not be encrypted so that search engine bots can index the content as before. But other protection method in "Meta Tag" and "Script" tabs could still be used to protect your pages.
Q: It seems that once a web page is protected using HTML Protector, the ability to e-mail from that protected page no longer works. Can you please explain why that happens?
A: The reason you are having this problem is the fact that some e-mail clients have JavaScript support disabled when viewing HTML e-mails. For example, Outlook Express' default "Security Zone" is set to the "Restricted sites" setting. This setting will prevent Outlook Express from allowing the JavaScript to decrypt your encoded HTML.
Q: I created new protected pages but the result of the "Test" within the HTML Protector was a URL of "about:blank", and a blank page displayed in the browser.
A: It seems that you have a feature like "Disable Off-line Viewing", "Location Lock" or "Referrer Lock" enabled for your protection. If these options are chosen, you will only view blank page when opening protected pages locally by clicking "Test" button within "Result" tab. To test these protected pages, you should upload them to your web server and test them remotely.
Q: How does HTML Protector work with FrontPage?
A: To make HTML Protector work with FrontPage correctly, please follow instructions as below:
"FrontPage extension (Web Component)" is used with your web pages:
To summarize, when you include "FrontPage extension" into a web page, FrontPage changes the saved HTML code before it publishes the page to the remote server, eliminating the local path references. You must first publish the page to the Web with FrontPage, and then you must download the source of the page back to your hard drive, and then use HTML Protector to encrypt that page and upload that page to the site. Otherwise, the paths will be wrong and the counter will not work.
1) Publish original pages to the remote server by using FrontPage.
2) Download all of your original pages back by using a FTP software program, and save them into a different directory from your FrontPage project, let us say, "c:\new_web".
3) Run HTML Protector, switch to "Tags to Skip" tab, then press "Add" button and input "<!--webbot" as "Starting Tag" and "-->" as "Ending Tag" (Note: no double quotation marks needed when you are inputting). If you are using FrontPage extension to save form result, you should also add another tags pair: "<form" and "</form>".
4) Protect your saved page in "c:\new_web". And upload protected pages back to your remote server and overwrite original pages by using FTP program.
"FrontPage extension (Web Component)" is not used with your web pages:
1) Create directory "c:\new_web" in your disk
2) Run HTML Protector, switch to "Output" tab, check "Copy to the following directory", specify "c:\new_web" as "Directory"
3) Do other settings as you like and start protection
4) After protection, you will find all new protected files in directory "c:\new_web"
5) Copy other non-HTML files into this new directory
6) Upload protected pages to your web and replace original pages with them by using FTP program.
Q: Why my pages could not be edited and published by using FrontPage again after protection?
A: A page protected by HTML Protector can't be edited by HTML editors (FrontPage, DreamWeaver, etc) directly. To modify the content of this protected page, you should modify the backup copy the original page, and protect it again.
To solve this problem in better way, you may choose "Copy to the following directory" in "Output" tab as "Output" mode and specify another directory to store new protected pages. During protection process, protected pages are generated in the directory you specified with same name of original pages. After protection, you also need copy other non-HTML files into this directory and upload all of them to your remote server.
Q: Can single license of HTML Protector be allowed to protect multiple pages, or multiple websites?
A: Single license can only allow you to install HTML Protector on one computer, but it may be used to protect web pages of unlimited number of web sites. So we think only one license should be purchased for all of your websites.
Q: How could I get the feature "Protect image by using server side script" to work?
A: This option will prevent your images from being saved in web browser cache. To make it work work, please:
1) Please make sure that HTML Protector v3.0 or later version has been used for your protection.
2) Your remote hosting server needs to be able to execute specified server side script (PHP, ASP or PERL). If you can't be certain of that, please inquiry it from your hosting provider.
3) The generated server side script file "hp_image.php (.asp/.perl)" must be uploaded to the same directory of protected pages.
Q: Which options should be enabled to protect images of my website?
A: With current version of HTML Protector, instructions as below may be chosen to protect your images at maximum extent:
Encryption Mode: Use "Protect BODY section" or "Protect entire page".
Script: Enable options include "Disable right mouse click", "Disable text select", "Don't display links in status bar", "Disable page printing", "Disable clipboard and printscreen", "Disable drag and drop", "Disable adobe acrobat web capture" and "Disable Opera user".
Image: Enable "Disable image caching in browser by using PHP", if your web server supports PHP.
Now HTML Protector also includes more advanced image protection options, which include:
Server-side script call: Convert image link to PHP, ASP or PERL call;
Flash protection: Convert image to Flash movie;
Image splitting: Split image into small pieces;
Watermark: Add watermark to image.
All these methods can take further steps to prevent people from stealing your images effectively under most conditions.
Q: Is it possible to encrypt a section of HTML code in a page rather than the entire contents of the body tag?
A: Yes. The "partial encryption mode" of HTML Protector may satisfy your need.
If you want to encrypt only a part of the code, you have to enclose it within these html comment tags (case insensitive):
<!--hpstart-->
... here comes the part of the code you want to encrypt
<!--hpend-->
After modified your original page, please use HTML Protector to protect it again and check the result. Please note: you should select "Protect nothing" as the "Encryption Mode" to make this "partial encryption mode" work.
Q: Which process should be taken to use both of HTML Protector and HTML Compact with a web page?
A: If you want to both protect and compress your pages, we suggest you follow steps as below:
1) Run HTML Protector first. Switch to "Encryption" tab, choose "Protect nothing" as "Encryption mode", and enable other protection options as you like. Then protect your original pages and get protected pages.
2) Run HTML Compact and compress your protected pages.
By doing that, your will make your pages both be compressed by HTML Compact and protected by HTML Protector. Also, it will generate a smaller and faster-load page, compared with the page you got before.
Q: How to protect .shtml files by using HTML Protector?
A: To work with your .shtml files, please choose "Server-side Include Page" for "File Type" option within "Input" tab before protection process.
Q: Will HTML Protector prevent screen capture software from capturing my web pages that are displayed on the screen?
A: HTML Protector has "Disable printscreen and clipboard" option, but it only works with Internet Explorer 4+ (Windows). The principle of this option is fairly simple: clear the content of clipboard periodically. If visitor tries to copy the screen by pressing "Printscreen" key on keyboard, he will fail. But it still can't stop him from using screen capture software like "Print Screen Deluxe" and "SnagIt".
Q: How to make "Location Lock" and "Referrer Lock" options work?
A: "Location Lock" is used to limit where your page should be placed. If your page will be allowed to place within www.mysite.com, you should enter "www.mysite.com" into "Domain/URL Address" of "Location Lock" option; If your page will only be allowed to place at http://www.mysite.com/mypage.htm, you should input "http://www.mysite.com/mypage.htm" instead.
"Referrer Lock" used to limit where your page should be linked.If your page will be allowed to link from any page within www.othersite.com, you should enter "www.othersite.com" into "Domain/URL Address" of "Referrer Lock" option; If your page will only be allowed to link from http://www.othersite.com/otherpage.htm, you should input "http://www.othersite.com/otherpage.htm" instead.
Q: When I access protected web pages, I can't copy and paste text with any other application.
A: If a web page which is protected with "Disable clipboard and printscreen" option enabled is opened in web browser, it will disable all system clipboard operation, such as "Copy" and "Paste". To fix this problem, please close web browser or unload this protected page.
Q: I want to be able to enter the password once for the login page and then the links will jump me to the other pages without having to retype the password for each page. How can I do that?
A: A new feature "Remember password on successful login" has been added with HTML Protector version 3.5. If the option is enabled, username and password will be saved into session cookie on successful login and visitor will not need to enter them again when opening other pages protected by using same username and password.
Q: After protecting my files I am getting numerous 404 errors in my access log with a command of "GET path/hp_null.css" with path being the path to the html file. Can you explain this please?
A: This problem was because that you enabled "Disable adobe acrobat web capture" option during protection. To make Adobe Acrobat 6 stop working, HTML Protector will add a not-existing CSS file "hp_null.css" reference into protected pages, which caused these 404 errors in your web log.
Q: I have been unsuccessful in trying to upload a protected web page to Yahoo Geocities. The file manager repeatedly displayed "invalid file" message. What am I doing wrong?
A: As we know, there are three possible methods can be applied to solve the upload problem with Yahoo Geocities.
1) Upload your protected files by using FTP software. Your FTP account information is listed in "File Management Tools" of your Geocities account. To get detailed information about FTP uploading, you may also read help manual at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/geo/gftp/.
2) The problem only occurs with Yahoo SiteBuilder. To avoid it, please upload your protected files by using Yahoo PageBuilder instead of Yahoo SiteBuilder, which can be accessed at http://geocities.yahoo.com/v/pb.html.
3) The following is contributed by Sid Paskowitz: "I used WordPad to highlight and copy the encoded protected page code to my electronic clipboard in Windows, opened the Geocities file manager, edited the current .htm page that I wanted to replace (I deleted all the current content), and then I pasted the content of the electronic clipboard to that page and saved it. The encoded page worked properly. (Note: if a current page/file with the desired name does not exist, the file manager can be used to create it by copying an existing page.)"
Q: After protecting of my ASP pages, I found that I still can read the ASP codes. Did I make something wrong?
A: By design, the basic principle of HTML Protector is converting static HTML source code into unreadable JavaScript string. Although it really supports dynamic web pages (ASP/PHP/JSP/etc), all dynamic script codes within the page will be skipped during protection process. This means that you still can see all of your script codes untouched in protected page, which must be done to makes protected dynamic page be parsed and executed by web server correctly.
Q: After I upload and test the online protected page, I still get nothing but a blank page.
A: The most possible reason of this problem is that you have used an incorrect value with "Domain/URL Address" field of "Location Lock" option. Please double check about it. If you still can not solve the problem, please send URL address of your protected page to us for further checking.
Q: When testing protected page offline, Internet Explorer displays a message at the top of the browser client area that blocks scripts until you allow them.
A: This is "Active Content Blocker" of Windows XP SP2. When you open web page on your local disk, the "Active Content Blocker" will pop up a message bar at the top of the browser to ask you to disable the JavaScript code in the web page. If you do that, all JavaScript code in the page will stop working after loading so that no protection option will take effect any more.
But fortunately, the "Active Content Blocker" function only affects local web page. If you open remote web pages (on your web server, etc), the "Active Content Blocker" will not work at all. This means that your protected pages on your web server will still work correctly as before even with visitor who installed XP SP2.
You are also allowed to disable the "Active Content Blocker" function by instructions as below:
1) Run Internet Explorer.
2) Choose "Internet Options" under "Tools" menu.
3) Go to "Advanced" tab, then enable "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer" option under "Security" item in the list.
Q: Does HTML Protector have the ability to prevent website from hotlinking?
A: It is sorry to say, we don't think HTML Protector can be used to prevent "hotlinking". To defeat "hotlinking" from your website, you should use some server-side methods instead.
Q: After I protect the web page, the content doesn't show and it says "To display this page you need a browser with JavaScript support".
A: By design, HTML Protector uses JavaScript based protection methods to protect web pages. This means that HTML code will be converted into JavaScript code after protection. To view the protected page correctly, you should enable JavaScript support of your web browser. For more information about this topic, please read http://www.umanitoba.ca/acn/support/websites/Javascript/.
Q: I would like to make a copy of a site that can be distributed on CD. I wanted to prevent someone from using these files to construct their own site. Can this be done with HTML Protector?
A: HTML Protector can disable right click on page, page printing, and even clipboard operation with all popular JavaScript enabled web browsers, so that we believe it will offer lots of protection options to the web pages on your CDROM. But at the same time, it can NOT prevent unauthorized using of these files. To do that, you had better use an Ebook Compiler to build all of your HTML pages, image files, and other including files into a standalone .EXE file and distribute it through CDROM. Then all the HTML pages and image files will be stored into the .EXE and can't be stolen by others. For this task, you may try our another software Ebook Maker at http://www.antssoft.com/ebookmaker/index.htm.
Q: How can I disable the "View Source" command of web browser with protected page?
A: If you used "Encrypt BODY section" or "Encrypt entire page" as "Encryption Mode" to protect your pages, HTML source code will be converted into JavaScript code. Due to technical limitation, the "View Source" function of web browser is impossible to be blocked by any JavaScript based HTML protection tool. But since the HTML code of protected page has already been encrypted by HTML Protector, it will be hard to be understood or reused by others.
Q: I choose to enable advanced image protection, but HTML Protector does not generate any protected image file (converted flash movie, watermarked image or splitted image) after protection. Any suggestion?
A: Please check following points about this problem:
1) The size limitation: There is an "Only protect image bigger than X * X pixels" option within "Image" tab. If you specify here 50 * 50 pixels as a minimum image size, any image with a width less than 50 pixels or a height less than 50 pixels will not be protected. All images outside this range will be protected, like 100 * 30 pixels images.
2) Please notice that you must enter correct value with "Site root folder" filed within "Input" tab. Specify the folder where all files that belong to your site reside. Only files inside that folder are considered a part of the site. This field is necessary when you enable advanced image protection options. If an incorrect value is entered with this field, some protected image files will probably not be generated in output directory after protection.
3) "Space" character in the image file name: There is a known bug with HTML Protector v3.0. If there is a "space" character in the filename of image, the protected image will fail to be created after protection. To solve the issue, please make sure that HTML Protector v3.5 or later version has been used for your protection.
4) A bug which is probably related to this problem has been fixed with the new beta version. Please download it with following address: http://www.antssoft.com/beta/htmlprotector.zip. After unzip, copy "htmlprotector.exe" into your HTML Protector install directory and overwrite current one.
If you still can not make it work, please send both of your original and protected sample pages to us for further checking (include image files and other non-HTML files; keep original directory structure; compress into .ZIP archive). Meanwhile, please also save your current protection options into user profile .INI and send it to us for analysis.
Q: I am not able to secure my images that I'm using for the website. All I get is red crosses instead of pictures after protection. Can you help me?
A: This problem may be caused by reasons listed below:
1) You have enabled "Protect image by using server side script" option during protection process. If you want to make this option work, you should: a) Your remote hosting web server should support specified server side script (PHP, Perl, or ASP). If you can't make sure about this point, you should inquiry from your hosting provider. b) The generated server-side script file "hp_image.php(.perl/.asp)" should be uploaded to the same directory of protected pages. c) Please make sure that you have installed HTML Protector v3.0 or later version to work with PHP 4.2+. Please also notice: a) Some programs like "Cookie Crusher" will hide the HTTP referrer field, which causes your protected image not be shown. b) Due to some unknown bug of Norton Firewall, it will also cause blank background image when Norton Firewall is enabled.
2) You have "protected" your image files directly. By design, HTML Protector can only be used to protect HTML-based files (.htm, .html, .asp, .php, etc...). This means that you can NOT use it to protect your image files (.gif, .jpg, etc...) directly. Otherwise, your image files will become invalid after "protection". To apply protection options to your images, you must protect the HTML page which contains the images you want to protect instead.
Q: I am looking to protect my HTML source code when I list on eBay. Is this possible?
A: HTML Protector v3.5 and later version has the ability to protect HTML source code for eBay auction listing. More detailed steps are listed below:
1) Login into your eBay account. Choose "edit description" with your item.
2) Choose "Enter you own HTML" above the input box of "item description".
3) Select all code in the input box, press "Ctrl+C" to copy it into the system clipboard.
4) Run "Notepad", and press "Ctrl+V" to paste all code into the empty document, then save the document under name as you like, let's say, "c:\foobar.htm".
5) Execute HTML Protector. Within "Input" tab, choose "Protect following files", and add "c:\foobar.htm" into the list, then choose "Ebay HTML Page" for the "File Type" option; Within "Output" tab, choose "Create new protected files"; Enable any other protection option within "Script" tab as you like; Finally, press "Protect" button to start the protection process.
6) If everything runs well, a new protected page "c:\protected_foobar.htm" will be generated.
7) Open "c:\protected_foolbar.htm" by using Notepad, select all code and press "Ctrl+C" to copy it into the system clipboard.
8) Go back to eBay, clear the input box of "item description", then press "Ctrl+V" and paste all code in clipboard into it.
9) Press "Save Changes" button.
More Software from AntsSoft:
| SWF Text | Flash Text Animation Builder | SWF Slide | Flash Slideshow Builder |
| SWF Menu | Flash Menu Builder | Ultra Menu | JavaScript Menu Builder |
| Ultra Button | Web Button Maker | HTML Protector | HTML Protection Tool |
| HTML Compact | HTML Compression Tool | Wise Popup | HTML Popup Generator |
| Ebook Maker | EBook Maker | Domain Inspect | Domain Name Checker |
| Link Survey | Link Popularity Checker |
