Preventing access to your PHP includes files

If you have a directory containing PHP includes, that you do not wish to be accessed directly from the browser, there is a way of disabling the directory using Mod_Rewrite.
 
To enable this, create a .htaccess file following the main instructions and guidance, and include the following text:
 

## Enable Mod Rewrite, this is only required once in each .htaccess file RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / ## Test for access to includes directory RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /includes/ .*$ [NC] ## Test that file requested has php extension RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} ^.+\.php$ ## Forbid Access RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

 
Where /includes/ is your includes directory.