htaccess is a very ancient configuration file that controls the Web Server running your website, and is one of the most powerful configuration files you will ever come across. .htaccess has the ability to control access/settings for the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) using Password Protection, 301 Redirects, rewrites, and much much more. This is because this configuration file was coded in the earliest days of the web (HTTP), for one of the first Web Servers ever! Eventually these Web Servers (configured with htaccess) became known as the World Wide Web, and eventually grew into the Internet we use today.

This is not an introduction to htaccess. This is a guide for using htaccess to the fullest. Originally (2003) this guide was known in certain hacker circles and hidden corners of the net as an ultimate htaccess due to the powerful htaccess tricks and tips to bypass security on a webhost, and also because many of the htaccess examples were pretty impressive back then in that group.