Hotlink prevention without htaccess or cookies?

In the past I used htaccess for this, however I ran into trouble as I do need the files to be accessible when a blank referrer is sent. Hence I left myself open for people remotely linking my files (mostly on forums) saying: "Just right click and save as."

Cookies are also not really an option since more and more people seem to turn them off.

At the moment I am using some php snippet on my pages that I pieced together in some whacko way from several googled php examples to create a symlink to the directory containing the files. The symlink directory is created according to the user's IP when he/she accesses the page and the php snippet deletes it after a preset time when the same page is accessed again (so people posting the URLs on forums and the likes just 404.)

Is there a better way around this or a more elegant way? Considering I guess the solution I have now is off a bit and probably not too secure, not to mention my php code could probably be improved by an ape on LSD.

Basically I want it to be totally transparent to the user, I did have a script before that was pretty good at preventing it, unfortunately it also prevented people from streaming a movie file in their mediaplayer, instead it made them download the whole file first.

Any input appreciated.

 

 

 

 

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