Add a feature to locally cache hotlinked images

[chromaniac]

XenForo added this feature recently and it solves one of the biggest problems for forums owners considering moving from HTTP to HTTPS.

"This page has insecure content." - Chrome Help

I have tried searching for a plugin. I could not locate one. I feel this should be an internal feature especially considering the paranoia surrounding online privacy and snooping.

I really wish to migrate my own forum to HTTPS but without a feature like this, I am pretty much stuck on HTTP.

[bfarber]

Can you please clarify what "feature" exactly it is that you are referring to? IP.Board can run entirely under https, although naturally if a user embeds an insecure image in a post or something there's nothing the software can do about that.

[chromaniac]

The software can tackle it by caching the remotely linked image locally. It is a community where owner does not have control over everyone's behavior. XenForo saw the need and they added a proxy feature for both images and links. And that is exactly what I am requesting here. Without such a feature, I personally cannot switch to HTTPS. This feature has been asked before. A >plugin existed a while ago but it was not updated for newer builds of IPB.

[Dmacleo]

it could be useful (especially for those that don't know how to enable mixed in the browser) but the same thing could be done by requiring them to upload (disable linking) the image as, in the end, its the same thing.

image file is stored on your server either way.

[chromaniac]

Yes. But I have a 10 year old forum and I have never allowed file uploads on the forum because almost all of the shared files are casual uploads with no long term value.

It also saves me a lot of headache wrt server backup sizes (I live in a third world country so bandwidth is sort of a luxury here). So to change this policy today would require a major change in strategy and processing around 700,000 posts for past uploads :)

I do not want to sound rude but looks like I would have to take the drastic step of migrating my forum platform again (I switched to IPB after the vb5 fiasco). My only need is a forum app. IPB is more of a suite. There are just too many compromises when it comes to the forum component of the suite. Just waiting to get a look at IPB4 before making the final decision. Thanks!