| Encrypt HTML source, ASP, PHP,
scripts, style sheets. Image protection for your website.
Welcome to the official HTML Guardian Online Help website.
[You may download a bit extanded offline version of
this online help file (.chm format, about 400 K) here.]
HTML Guardian is the first and most
popular solution for total website protection.
Initially released in April 1997, today it is adopted as a world standard
for web intellectual property protection - nearly 90% of the webmasters
who want to encrypt html code, protect ASP, Javscript, VBScript,
PHP files or style sheets, hide html source from thieves, need
extremely secure html password protection or an enhanced image
protection use HTML Guardian. Read here why.
To start using HTML Guardian immediately, please scroll down.
Most questions you may have are hopefully answered in our FAQ and
in the other sections of this site. If you need some additional information,
you are welcome to contact our support team .
How to use HTML Guardian
You need to follow four easy steps to protect your files with HTML Guardian.
- Select the file(s) to protect
Click 'Select file' if
you want to encrypt a single file.
Click 'Select folder' to encrypt all files
in that folder at once. Only *.htm, *.html, *.shtm, *.shtml, *.stn,
*.js, *.vbs, *.asp, *.inc and *.php files inside the selected folder will
be encrypted, everything else will remain unchanged (if Image
Protection is enabled, images will also be protected).
When you encrypt a folder, HTML Guardian will create a copy of this
folder with "_E" added
to the folder name and will put all encrypted files there under their
original names. If for example you selected to encrypt C:\MySites\Site1\ folder(the
source folder), the encrypted files will be saved in C:\MySites\Site1_E\ (the
destination folder).
HTML Guardian will copy all the files that were not encrypted(like
.swf, .wav etc) , and all subfolders from the source to the destination
folder too to ensure that encrypted files will work correctly.
Actually the destination folder will be an exact copy of the source
folder. Files of types which HTML Guardian can't protect will be
copied to the destination folder without any modifications.
Note that folder encryption is now recursive - HTML Guardian will
encrypt all the appropriate files in the source folder, and all the files
inside its subfolders.
Click 'Paste' to paste code for encryption
from the clipboard. You should correctly specify the type of the code you want to protect - html, javascript, asp etc. in the code type selection dialog that will pop up.
For fast and easy encryption of custom sets of
files with different protection options for each file, please read
HTML Guardian's File List Manager and
Command line reference. The File List Manager is a versatile tool that makes possible to encrypt the html source code of any set of files , with per-file defined security settings - this ensures maximum flexibility.
To secure an entire website (or any set of files
that reside in one folder) both for 'All' and 'IE5+' browsers witha
different protection options for each file, use HTML
Guardian's Site Manager.
- Set the desired protection options
All HTML Guardian protection options and settings
are explained below.
If you want to protect the images in the files you encrypt, you should
also enable and configure Image Protection
(Image Guardian) .
- Encrypt the file(s)
That's really easy, just click the 'Encrypt' button.
- Test & Save the result
Once the file(s) are encrypted, test the result.
If you selected to encrypt a single file, just click the 'Test'
button to open the encrypted file in your default browser. Note
that it is disabled if you've selected to encrypt a script file,
or if you've checked 'Don't allow offline use' option, or if you
encrypt an .asp file.
For script files, test all html files that use them. If you saved
the encrypted script file under a different name, don't forget to
change that name in the html files that use the script file before
testing.
Files with offline use disabled will not work if you simply double
click them in windows explorer. You have to open them using the http
protocol - either upload them to some web server, or test them using
a local http server(this also applies to .asp files). Windows NT/2000
users may use Microsoft's one which is a part of IIS(Internet Information
Services). Windows 9.x users may use Microsoft's Personal Web Server [not recommended, as it has lot's of bugs],
or some other http server like OmniHttpd. To test a file using a
local http server, just copy the file to the server's root folder,
then in the URL field of your browser type http://127.0.0.1/filename.htm.
You can define up to four browsers in which you want to test the encrypted
files by clicking 'Define browsers' under the 'Tools' menu
(or by pressing Ctrl + B). Click the "..." button
to select the main browser executable.
After the browsers are defined, you can test each encrypted file
in each of the defined browsers by pressing Ctrl
+ 1 .... Ctrl +4 keys. This is only possible if you encrypted
a single file, testing encrypted folders, sites or filelists in diferrent
browsers should be done manually.
Setting the protection options
- Target browsers
Here you have to define in which browsers the
encrypted file should work.
If you select 'All', the encrypted file will work in all javascript
enabled browsers.
If you select 'IE5+', encrypted files will be properly displayed
only in Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, and also in all browser
built on Internet Explorer, such as NetCaptor, FastBrowser, ClickGarden,
etc.
The second method is faster and more secure, it's practically impossible
to be cracked.
- File type
You only need to set this option if you paste code
for encryption from the clipboard. In all other cases HTML Guardian
will detect it automatically. If you paste code from the clipboard,
make sure to select to correct file type, otherwise there might be
errors in the protected source. If for example you want to encrypt
html code, you should select the 'html' option. If you want to protect
a frameset file(which is actually an html file) , select the 'frameset'
option.
- Encrypting only some parts of the file
This option can't be configured from the user
interface.
There are two possible ways to encrypt a file partially:
You can specify which parts of the code TO
BE encrypted (the rest of the code will remain unencrypted)
- - OR - -
You can specify which parts of the code NOT
TO BE encrypted (these parts will remain unencrypted, the rest
of the code will be encrypted). If you want to encrypt only a part
of the code, you have to enclose it within these html comment tags(case
sensitive):
<!--htmlgstart -->
... here comes the part of the code you want to encrypt
<!--htmlgstop -->
If you want some part of the code to remain unencrypted, you have
to enclose it within these html comment tags(case sensitive):
<!--htmlgskipstart -->
... here comes the part of the code you do not want to encrypt
<!--htmlgskipstop -->
If HTML Guardian founds these tags in the file to be encrypted, it
will automatically switch to partial encryption mode, otherwise it
will encrypt the entire file. Partial encryption is only possible
for html files, and not for script, frameset, .shtml or .asp
files. It can be very useful if you want to hide
source code(html only) partially and leave some of it editable.
You can encrypt or leave unencrypted as many parts of the source
code as you wish, but you can't mix both methods in one file.
- Disable right click
This option is very useful and we suggest that you
use it for all html files. This way the visitors of your site will
not be able to right click on your images and select 'Save image..'
from the context menu, or to copy link addresses the same way.
Using this option will also automatically disable the Image Toolbar
in Internet Explorer 6.
- Don't show links in status bar
Normally when you put your mouse over a link, the
file to which this link points is displayed in browser's status bar(usually
at the bottom of the browser window). Check this option if you want
to protect links by making this information invisible. Use this option
together with the previous one, otherwise visitors will be able to
copy link addresses from the right click context menu
Note: This option will suppress your custom status bar messages,
if any.
- Disable text selection
Using this option will make impossible text to be
selected and copied by dragging the mouse, pressing Ctrl+A or clicking
'Select All' either in browser's Edit menu or in right click context
menu.
- Don't allow offline use
If you use this option,your files will work fine
when someone is browsing your site, but will not work if they are saved
and run from the local hard drive. To work, files protected this way
should be requested through http protocol. To test a file with offline
use disabled, you have to upload it to some web server, or you can
also test it offline if you have some http server installed, like the
http server which is a part of Microsoft IIS(Internet Information Services).
The file will not work if you simply double click it .To test the file
using a local http server, copy it to the server's root folder, then
in the url field of your browser type: http://127.0.0.1/filename.htm
- Password protection
When you check 'Password protect this page' box,
the html password protection configuration window will open.
Here you have to set the html password which the visitors must
enter to see the page. Also, you have to select where to redirect
the visitors in case an incorrect password was entered.
Redirection options are:
Display blank page - will display a blank
html page.
Go back - will turn the visitor back to the
previous page visited.
Redirect to this URL - here you can enter
any valid URL like http://www.protware.com - visitor will be redirected to this
url in case of incorrect password.
If you want to password protect many files but the visitors of your
site to be asked for a password only once, you chould check the "Ask
for a password only once" box in the General
Settings configuration window
- Referrer check
When you check 'Add referrer check' box, the
referrer configuration window will open. Here you have to set the
scope of URL's allowed to link this page, and where to redirect the
visitors in case the page is linked from another place.
Redirection options are:
Display blank page - will display a blank
page.
Redirect to this URL - here you can enter
any valid URL like http://www.protware.com - visitor will be redirected to this
url in case the referrer is outside the scope of URL's allowed
to link this page.
Let's explain what referrer is - this is information about where
you come from. Let's say you have two pages, page1.htm and page2.htm,
and you have a link to page2.htm in page1.htm. When you click the
link in page1.htm and open page2.htm, the browser will know that
you come here from page1.htm. Actually, the referrer would be http://www.yourdomain.com/page1.htm.
But if you open page1.htm and then you visit page2.htm, but not by
clicking a link to it (like if you type the page2 url in the url
field of your web browser, or if you open page2 from your bookmarks),
the referrer will be an empty string.
So the referrer check option is useful if you don't want your pages
to be linked from another websites.
In 'This page can be linked from' textbox you have to enter some
common part from the URL's of the files allowed to link this page.
Normally that would be your domain name, like protware or protware.com
- in this case the protected file can be linked only from within
your domain. You may also include a filename here, like http://www.protware.com/features.htm,
or just protware.com/features.htm - in this case, the protected file
can be linked from the specified file only.
To say it in another way - the protected file can be linked only
from files which URL's contain the string you entered in 'This page
can be linked from' textbox. If for example you enter there 'com',
the file can be linked from any other file from any whatever.com domain,
or from communications.org
Note: This option will not work for files
opened in javascript generated windows. For example, the referrer
check will fail for the protected file test.htm if you open it from
a script like this
new_win = window.open("my_test.htm");
, no matter from which file you open it. This option will work only
for files opened by clicking regular hyperlinks like
<a href='my_test.htm'>Click here to open
my_test.htm</a>
Note: This option will not work offline. If you test a file
protected with this option offline, the referrer check will always
fail and the action specified in case of an incorrect referrer will
be performed (you'll be either redirected to the URL specified in
case of an incorrect referrer, or a blank page will be displayed
- depending on what you specified in the referrer check configuration
window).
Never use this option when you protect files intended for offline
usage, like for example tutorials in HTML format that will be distributed
on CD's etc.
- Disable page printing
Checking this option will make impossible a protected
html file to be printed.
Note: This will not actually 'disable' page printing. If someone tries
to print a protected html file, only blank pages will be printed.
- Disable Clipboard & Print Screen
This will only work in IE 5+ browsers. If this option
is checked, this will totally disable the clipboard and the ability
to take screenshots by using the Print Screen button. The clipboard
will be fully disabled while a page encrypted with this option is opened
- it will be impossible to copy/paste text, files or anything else.
If your site uses frames and two or more html files are displayed in
the frameset, it is recommended to use this option for only one of
the files.
- Encrypt Meta tags
HTML Guardian is designed to skip Meta tags when
encrypts html files, because in most cases there is no need to do that.
Also, some Meta tags may have no effect if encrypted(such as content,
keywords, or the ones that define the character set). But some meta
Meta tags will work fine encrypted, for example refresh.
If you use this option, all Meta tags will be encrypted.
If you want to encrypt only some of the Meta tags: Cut the Meta tags
you don't want to encrypt and leave the ones you want. Check 'Encrypt
Meta tags' and encrypt the file, then paste the unencrypted ones in
the beginning of the head tag of the encrypted file.
- Only compress code(without encryption)
There could be some files you don't want to encrypt.
You can use this option to decrease their size. It will remove all
unneeded characters from the html code, like new lines, tabs, spaces,
comments etc. Compressed files can be edited with HTML editors, but
it will be inconvenient (although possible) to edit them with a simple
text editor such as Notepad. The results of compression may vary a
lot, file size can be decreased from 3 to about 30 %.
This option can't be used for vbs or asp files, and all additional
protection options are not available.
HTML Guardian offers two code compression levels - High and Low. Files
will be compressed with the currently selected compression level, which
can be changed from the General Settings window.
Note: You don't have to compress files first and then encrypt
them. HTML Guardian automatically compresses the files before encryption.
Note: In HTML Guardian Personal edition the "only compress code" option
is limited to files up to 8-10 KB in size. Larger files will be compressed
only using the Low compression level. This limitation will not be applied
for the files you encrypt - they will always be compressed using the
level specified by you.
- Disable syntax check
HTML Guardian displays a warning if the file being
encrypted is with an incorrect syntax.
If you use this option, warnings will not be displayed. HTML Guardian's
syntax checker will still work and will create a new entry in the Error
Log for most of the detected errors (but not for all of them).
In many cases the files listed in the error log will work, but there
is no guarantee.
You should check all encrypted files listed in the error log - if they
do not work as expected, you should check and fix the original files,
then re-encrypt them.
- Using HTML Guardian's Auto Update utility
To check if a new version of HTML Guardian software is available,
click the 'Check for updates' menu item under the 'Update' menu.
This will start HTML Guardian's Auto Update utility which will inform
you whether a version newer than the one you have is available. In
case there is a newer version, you can read a brief description of
the new features added, then the updates will be downloaded and installed
automatically.
The Auto Update utility will detect all information needed to connect
to the web (proxies, DNS, etc.) from your default browser, you don't
have to configure it. But you have to be connected to the internet
before starting it, otherwise an error message will be displayed.
Auto Update utility is only available in HTML Guardian Professional
/ Enterprise Edition.
We recommend to check for updates at least once per month. If you experience
problems when you encrypt html files, protect
images, use the html
password encryption, hide html source code or when performing
any other task, please first check if a new version of the program
is available- the problem may be fixed in it.
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