How to hide .php extension in .htaccess

I've used this:

RewriteEngine On

# Unless directory, remove trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ http://example.com/folder/$1 [R=301,L]

# Redirect external .php requests to extensionless URL
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^(.+)\.php([#?][^\ ]*)?\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.php$ http://example.com/folder/$1 [R=301,L]

# Resolve .php file for extensionless PHP URLs
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)$ $1.php [L]

See also: this question

The other option for using PHP scripts sans extension is

Options +MultiViews

Or even just following in the directories .htaccess:

DefaultType application/x-httpd-php

The latter allows having all filenames without extension script being treated as PHP scripts. While MultiViews makes the webserver look for alternatives, when just the basename is provided (there's a performance hit with that however).

1) Are you sure mod_rewrite module is enabled? Check phpinfo()

2) Your above rule assumes the URL starts with "folder". Is this correct? Did you acutally want to have folder in the URL? This would match a URL like:

/folder/thing -> /folder/thing.php

If you actually want

/thing -> /folder/thing.php

You need to drop the folder from the match expression.

I usually use this to route request to page without php (but yours should work which leads me to think that mod_rewrite may not be enabled):

RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ $1.php  [L,QSA]

3) Assuming you are declaring your rules in an .htaccess file, does your installation allow for setting Options (AllowOverride) overrides in .htaccess files? Some shared hosts do not.

When the server finds an .htaccess file (as specified by AccessFileName) it needs to know which directives declared in that file can override earlier access information.