I want normal URL like www.sample.com/controller not www.sample.com/public/index.php/controller.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCo
I've no idea how you get this .htaccess. If you download CodeIgniter 4 from here and you can see Htaccess file is different what you added.
Since there are many changes in CodeIgniter (1,2,3) to Codeigniter 4, htaccess moved to public/ folder which will set to document root and .htaccess which place outside will not valid in CI 4
Correct path to .htaccess
public/.htaccess
Note: I just tested index.php URL issue and there was no issue like that. worked/loaded fine without index.php