giving information to .htaccess auth. prompt thru perl script.

hello techies,<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;I am buliding adownload page from where members can download files. i have placed an htaccess file for authorization. <br>i want to authorize the htaccess prompt thru a cgi script instead of the pop window which comes up.<br>one method i know is using a url like this:<br><A HREF=" HREF="mailtoassword@ TARGET="_new"> HREF="mailtoassword@ this shows up the password in the url. is there any method with which i can hide the login and password(and pass both these parameters from the cgi script).<br><br>thankx.