Anti-leeching: Require HTTP_REFERER or not?

I provide some downloads on my site. I don't want other webmasters hotlinking to the downloads because it'll waste too much of my bandwidth.

Right now I'm setting httpd.conf such that if the HTTP_REFERER is not from my site, then it'll deny the download. But people with download accelerator programs are having trouble.

Should I perhaps allow all downloads that have blank HTTP_REFERER? Will that cause a lot of leeched bandwidth in your experience?

 

 

 

 

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