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I'm new to the web engineering and I have done some searching for URL/Domain masking. In my company, my HOD asked one question during meeting and wants the answer in the next meeting. He asked that why are some sites will hide their real file type?

E.g. http://example/examplefolder/page.NET into http://example/examplefolder/page.html. Why the extension of the pages will always end up in html? Is is the reason to prevent some curious outsider from trying to attack the web site? Is this related with URL rewritting?

Stephen Ostermiller
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gitguddoge
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  • See this related question. Since you're asking about why one extension would be used in-replace of another, I'm reopening this. – dan Aug 23 '18 at 14:16
  • Cool URIs do not show an extension at all, for all the good reason explained in https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI , see "What to leave out" section. – Patrick Mevzek Aug 23 '18 at 14:31
  • There's no such thing as a .net file extension. It's .asp or a variant. More here on file extensions on the web. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1614520/what-are-common-file-extensions-for-web-programming-languages – Abu Nooh Aug 23 '18 at 15:30
  • @abunooh the .net extension if for netViz Project Files: https://www.reviversoft.com/file-extensions/net – Stephen Ostermiller Aug 24 '18 at 11:07

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There can be several reasons for changing the file extension - though this is not necessarily to "hide" anything.

Two might be:

  1. Consistency: By using index.html, the webmaster can change the platform they use and be consistent - from a .Net platform to .PHP platform to a platform outputting the more typical .html - and not worry about having to change later;

  2. User Expectation: Users expect .html and it may be thought using .html will make them more comfortable.

TBB
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