Am I missing the point?

[JT]

The script is installed and working fine...

You can still copy link location (  http://www.MYSITE.com/includes/download.php?f=sample.zip )   paste into new browser and the file downloads without any issue?

Am I missing the point here? I thought this was suppose to prevent direct downloads? As it stands a user can still use the link above on their site and download the file as per usual.

Any comments welcomed!

Thanks.

[zubrag]

It is working exactly like you described. By saying "prevent direct file download" we meant users will not know direct file path for downloading (like http://www.example.com/downloads/sample.zip)

Having all downloads going through download.php allows you fully to control these downloads by customizing download.php as you wish. For example by adding IP restriction to download.php all downloads would become protected with this. It can be treated as a proxy for downloads, where you have control over all downloads in one place. You can password protect downloads, etc.

[psp]

This script is to "Hide" the real location of your file. It had nothing to do with hot link or direct link.
If you want to prevent hot link or direct link like you describe you don't want people download link post on another website except your. All you need to do is goto Cpanel > Hot Link Protection and configure there.