Disable Directory Browsing with HostGator

How would you feel if someone could view the contents of all your directories which do not contain an index.html, index.php, or other index file? Personally, I feel like my privacy has been invaded. Time to shed some light.

How’s your setup? Let’s test. From your browser’s address bar, navigate to a directory that you suspect may not contain an index file (an images folder is usually guilty). For WordPress users, try something like http://www.example.com/wp-includes. If you see a list of files, then others can see this too. I don’t like this. Keep reading.

If you host with HostGator or any other host for that matter, I strongly urge you to disable directory browsing. There are a few ways this can be done. You could edit the .htaccess or httpd.conf files but I feel it’s easiest to do this in cPanel.

From your cPanel admin, click on `Index Manager`. Select `public_html` from the list of folders, and on the next screen select `No Indexing`, then click save.

Doing this will keep people from seeing a list of files in your directories. Security is good. Be safe.

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