How to allow certain html tags?

Question

I got a textarea where the user can write an article. The article can contain text (bold and italic), links and youtube videos. How do I allow those certain html tags and still post secure xss-preventing code?

Answer 1

I would use HTMLPurifier, to ensure that you only keep HTML

• That is valid
• and only contains tags and attributes you've choosen to allow

I should add that PHP provides the strip_tags() function, but it's not that good (quoting) :

Because strip_tags() does not actually validate the HTML, partial or broken tags can result in the removal of more text/data than expected.

This function does not modify any attributes on the tags that you allow using allowable_tags, including the style and onmouseover attributes that a mischievous user may abuse when posting text that will be shown to other users.