Easiest way to put password-protected download on my website?

[d000hg]

I'm not a webby kind of person; I've a plan B website using WordPress and I want to put up a demo application download but make the download password-protected, or at the very least require the person to know the exact URL.

I DO have the ability to make password-protected pages in WP so I could dump the file onto my site using FTP and put a link on a password-protected page - is that adequate?

[TheFaQQer]

You can modify the .htaccess to password protect a folder, but I don't think that stops someone downloading a file if they know the direct URL.

Since it's Wordpress, have a look at the various plugins around this - the free version of wpdownloadmanager looks like it would do the trick for you.

[MicrosoftBob]

Can you make it so some of the code runs server side, with unique versions of the software with a unique serial number tied to that version

Then downloading would become less of an issue

[d000hg]

In a full version maybe, but I'm not re-designing the software just for this purpose right now.

[xoggoth]

Did you sort this? If not I have some code I use for program downloads, not Wordpress, but very simple PHP code.

PS On second thought perhaps it's not that simple if you don't know PHP so bit more explanation as may be more than you need. User enters details inc. email address which is bunged in database along with generated password. Password is emailed to user with link to login page. He can then log into page using pwd which shows his download links. Can be more than one.

[d000hg]

I'm trialling a WP plugin. It doesn't give you a link to the file you can copy-paste which is annoying but on the other hand presumably means the files can be stored in a private location, so the plugin serves the download using PHP.

[stek]

What about a password-protected zip file?

[d000hg]

What about a password-protected zip file?

I guess it's not a bad shout if I want to provide a direct download URL.

[NickFitz]

You could host the file on Amazon S3. That makes it easy to generate secured download links, and even things like links that will only work for a specified window of time.

[Pondlife]

Shared file on Dropbox maybe?