Materron Download Guard

Description

A common abuse on membership and download sites: someone subscribes to the cheapest plan, downloads your whole library in a few minutes and cancels. Materron Download Guard stops it.

Works with Download Monitor, Easy Digital Downloads 3 and WooCommerce downloadable products, with any membership plugin that assigns roles. Downloads from all of them are added up for each account.

Download limits

• A daily limit and a 30-day limit at the same time, per role. Both must be respected.
• Rolling windows (last 24 hours and last 30 days), so nobody gets a fresh quota by waiting for midnight or the first of the month.
• Stricter limits for new members during a period you choose (30 days by default). This is what stops “subscribe, download everything, cancel”. With Restrict Content Pro, the new-member period starts with the first membership that was ever activated.
• A clear message when a limit is reached, telling the member when they can download again, instead of a generic “no access” page.

Bulk-download alerts

• Get an email when an account downloads too much too fast (by default, more than 20 downloads within 10 minutes).
• Optionally block the account from downloading until you review it.

Activity screen

• Top downloaders in the last 24 hours and the last 30 days, with each member’s status.
• Blocked accounts, with one-click block and unblock.

Sign-up filter

Bulk downloaders usually sign up with throwaway accounts. Download Guard can reject, on the WordPress, Restrict Content Pro, Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce registration forms:

• usernames made only of numbers,
• disposable email addresses,
• email domains that cannot receive mail (DNS check).

How it counts

Downloads are read from the download plugin’s own log, so no extra table is created and existing history counts from day one. Administrators are never limited.

This plugin is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Download Monitor, Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce teams.

Privacy

Download Guard does not send data to any external service and does not track anyone. It reads the download logs that Download Monitor, Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce already keep, and stores only its settings and, for blocked accounts, when and why they were blocked (in the user’s meta data).

Bulk-download alerts are emailed from your site to the address you choose, with the account’s username and email address.

The optional sign-up check “Email domains that cannot receive mail” makes a DNS lookup of the email address’s domain through your server’s DNS resolver. No other data is sent. You can turn it off in the settings.

Developers

Development happens on GitHub: github.com/materron/materron-download-guard.

Filters:

• dlgd_user_limits — change the limits for a user.
• dlgd_member_since — return when a user became a member (for membership plugins other than Restrict Content Pro).
• dlgd_is_exempt — exempt users from limits and alerts (administrators by default).
• dlgd_denied_message — change the message shown when a download is denied.
• dlgd_signup_rejection — change why a sign-up is rejected.
• dlgd_disposable_email_domains — change the list of disposable email domains.
• dlgd_adapter_classes — add support for another download plugin (extend DLGD_Adapter).

Actions:

• dlgd_download_denied — a download was denied.
• dlgd_burst_detected — an account downloaded too much too fast.
• dlgd_account_blocked and dlgd_account_unblocked.