[Nazir]

If you've ever created something that you're proud of, you'll understand the desire to protect your intellectual property. But JavaScript on the Web is an open-source language by nature; it comes to the browser in its source form, so if the browser can run read it, a person can read it.

There are a few applications on the web that claim to offer source-code encryption, but in reality; there's nothing you can do to encrypt source-code that another coder couldn't decrypt in seconds. In fact, some of these programs actually cause problems: they often reformat code in such a way as to make it slower, less efficient, or just plain broken. My advice? Stay away from them like the plague.

But still, the desire to hide code remains. There is something that you can do so obfuscate, if not outright encrypt, the code that your users can see.

Code that has been stripped of all comments and unnecessary whitespace is very difficult to read, and as you might expect, extracting individual bits of functionality from such code is extrimely difficult. The simple technique of compressing your scripts in this way can put-off all but the most determined hacker.

However, remember that improtant word-unnecessary. Some whitespace is essential, such as the single spaces after var and typeof.

[ScottHughes]

I always use server-side codes whenever I can. I'm not a fan of JavaScript for that reason. For that reason, I've gotten in the habit of always making my pages .php files rather than .html.