What does a link know about me? Keep a close eye on $_SERVER variables

August 10th, 2011 by admin | Posted in Internet Security

Did you ever hear of the small variable

$_SERVER['HTTP REFERER']

and the fact that webmasters can always look at your previous website?

The so-called Server variables will submitted by use of HTTP protocol within your Browser to the website.

To be continued!

These information will be saved  – depending on the servers configuartion -  and available for webmasters by the web server. Server variables hide sensible data, somebody wouldn’t  talk about with unkown people. The variables are the most important information, Google collects about website users!

But what – especially – saves a web server automatically?

  • ‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’: Contains your browser and OS information. An famous example: Mozilla/4.5 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.9 i586).
  • ‘REMOTE_ADDR’: Your IP adress.
  • ‘REMOTE_HOST’: Your hostname / provider.
  • ‘REMOTE_PORT’: The open port, yout browser used to connect with the internet.
  • ‘REQUEST_TIME’: The exact time and date, you opend the website.

My IP adress shows your personal content of the variables.

How can I hide my information?

You can use our free proxy service. Go to the Anonymizer.


This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 at %I:%M %pand is filed under Internet Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “What does a link know about me? Keep a close eye on $_SERVER variables”

  1. Spartanburg Web Design On January 29th, 2012 at %I:%M %p

    Hey! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any problems with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing months of hard work due to no back up. Do you have any methods to protect against hackers?

  2. admin On February 19th, 2012 at %I:%M %p

    Hi Boccella! We will publish some information about protecting blogs very soon. Thx

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