What is the best way to password protect folder/page using php without a db or username

Question

What is the best way to password protect folder using php without a database or user name but using. Basically I have a page that will list contacts for organization and ne

Answer 1

I doubt if this would count as the best wasy of doing it, but it would work. And since security doesn't seem to be a big issue for you, the fact that this way's as insecure as hell probably won't bother you either.

Have a login.php page that takes a password and then sets a cookie if the login details are correct. Each php file can then check for the existence of the cookie to determine whether or not the user is "logged in" or not, and display information accordingly.

login.php
...
if(isset($_POST['password']) && $_POST['password'] == 'my_top_secret_word') {
    setcookie('loggedin', 'true', time() + 1200, '/url/');
} else {
    setcookie('loggedin', 'false', time() - 1200, '/url/');
    // display a login form here
}
etc

each "protected" page would then check for this cookie:

if(isset($_COOKIE['loggedin'])) {
    if($_COOKIE['loggedin'] == 'true') {
        $showHidden = true;
    } else {
        $showHidden = false;
    }
} else {
    $showHidden = false;
}

I'm sure you get the (highly insecure) idea ...