Definition of Bandwidth Stealing; Hot-linking; non-html files!

As a newbie I searched the web hunting for information that would explain these words. Boy! What a well kept secret! A non-html file? What in the world is that? Bandwidth? Huh? Hot-linking? Excuuuussse Me?

So I'm gonna let the 'cat outta the bag here'! But first I would like to ask our Web Hosts why they can't simply put it in plain English, ya know, like this:
"We do not allow bandwidth stealing, or hot-linking. Meaning: you CANNOT leave images in guestbooks, on messages boards or in forums from your ftp file here or from other peoples web pages, nor put a link on YOUR web pages linked directly to images on other peoples pages. Non-html files? After 2 years on the Net I'm still not positive what they mean by this, however, according to my 'Dictionary of Computer Terms' a file is: A collection of related records treated as a basic unit of storage. So I figure the term must mean:

DON'T STORE YOUR FILES HERE!
Or in other words, "do not put images or music in your files at your web hosts address: "YOUR ftp", unless you are 'linking' them into your personal .html pages.

If you are putting images or music in YOUR ftp file be sure they are linked into one of your pages.

If you want someone to obey the rules, make the rules understandable!!!!!

I hope this page clears up any all misconceptions and questions concerning bandwidth stealing, hot-linking and non-html files. However, if you do not have a web site then you cannot be leaving images on the web without breaking these rules. You must have your own 'ftp' file or 'file manager' to put images into before leaving them any where on the web.

What Is Bandwidth?
It is the amount of data sent between one computer to another. When you clicked to enter this page, the data was sent from my ftp file that is hosted by a host company, to your web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape and so on..) and stored on the hard drive of your computer, usually in your cache. This data is measured in bytes and added up to make your bandwidth usage. Some Web Hosts charge web site owners if they use over a previously agreed amount of bandwidth per month. This is where the problems come in.

How can it be stolen?
Bandwidth is stolen when a person links directly to an image from someone else's ftp file. You'll find the following on many websites, "The graphics on this site are free as long as you save the graphics on your computer (your own hard drive)". Meaning: download them to your computer, and then upload them and your pages to your ftp host where your web site resides! The HTML code, on your .html page, for the graphic you downloaded will look like this:

The wrong way (hot-linking; stealing bandwidth; or the words "no non-html files") is to not bother saving the image on your computer but pulling it off someone else's site (from the ftp files they pay for) with the following HTML code:

Note the difference between the two: one is just image source="nameofgif.gif" and the other actually has and http: address in it.

Lets say your website is hosted by: www.bestontheweb.com and you use www.worstontheweb.com in your "img src" address, then you are pulling the gif from www.worstontheweb.com which is not your account.

Okay, what if you leave something in a guestbook and are using your address (img src="youraddress.com/imagename.gif")? This is strictly up to whoever is hosting YOUR website, whether they allow it or not. Most FREE hosts do not.

Why anyone would want to deliberately steal bandwidth, or hotlink, is beyond me.
Stealing other peoples bandwidth or images can lead to a lot of problems. First of all hot-linking to other peoples graphics leaves you with no control of those images whatsoever. What if the images are deleted, or file and directory names are changed? The image disappears so you won't have the image any longer and if the site is taken down permanently the image is lost to you forever. It also means your pages will take longer to load and that means less visitors to your site.

Linking to graphics from multiple servers will add significant download time to your web site, giving visitors the perfect reason to move on elsewhere before your page has even loaded. Webmasters are becoming, and rightly so, very angry about bandwidth stealing and hot-linking. They could, put in place of the gif you stole, something really offensive or even a gif proclaiming you a bandwidth thief!! Which, of course, you are. And last but not least you could be sued!!!!

It is said that the majority of people "Hotlink or Steal bandwidth because they are miss informed and don't understand. This needs to be addressed so that ALL will understand.

Two of my most favorite sites are currently down because of people who didn't understand they were direct linking to their gifs!!!

However, Web Hosts are at fault also for not making it clear in their rules exactly what they mean by bandwidth stealing, hot-linking and non-html files and whether or not we are allowed to leave gifs in guestbooks, etc. It's time they take a little of the responsibility for not being clear and precise to newbies!

When I was a newbie I actually wrote to my host's support team and asked if I could leave gifs in a guestbook and what did non-html files mean and they didn't bother to answer about the guestbook and wrote me the same thing I asked: "You can't have non-html files". I didn't understand a word of that email!!! I already knew from reading the rules that I couldn't use non-html files, whatever they were???
Then again, considering they can send the site owner a whopping bill for bandwidth that others are stealing, maybe they aren't in any hurry to explain in plain Language what these terms mean?

Below are some of the examples of the confusion I found while searching the Internet for information on bandwidth stealing and hot-linking:

Example of question on a servers 'support rules':
12. You said no hot-linking. What about guestbooks and forums?
Here is where one of the differences come into play between _____.com and _____.com. You may use images when you sign a guestbook or a forum if your site is on ____.com. There is NO hot-linking allowed from _____.com to anywhere.

Another example of site rules:
7) We prohibit the hot-linking of images. Hot-linking images is defined as loading images from our site or another site to any other site is not allowed. Download the image and run it off the server.

Comment in a forum:
We're about to have them. Trust my server to not put ANYWHERE in the conditions of the site that they don't allow hot-linking, I finally found the rules in the FAQ, and it says:

Another forum comment:
It's very, very difficult to find a free web provider that allows hotlinking anymore. ___ does, which is a big reason I hope they have decided not to do away with homepages. (I notice there is no longer a notice about it at homepages.___.com) ______ did allow it but I think they have stopped just in the past few days as I was using it and it no longer works. If anyone does know of a free site allowing hot-linking, please let me know - I need it for graphics for a message board I run.

If you have more questions check out FAQs link at the top of the page.

I sincerely hope you found this page useful and if you have any questions, comments or anything you think I should add, please feel free to E-mail Me.