Description

The smart User Slug Hider Plugin hides usernames in Author Pages URLs to enhance Security

If you like this plugin please do me favor and leave a review here on wordpress.org so that other people know it is helpful for you. Thanks!

Usage

The plugin automatically replaces user names with 16 digits coded strings. Just install and forget. Deactivating the Plugin restores the default WordPress behavior.

Why use this plugin?

WordPress uses the pattern example.com/author/name for author page URLs where name represents the users login name.

This means that the login names from all your users are publicly visible which is a serious security flaw.

The smart User Slug Hider Plugin changes all author page URLs from e.g. example.com/author/john to something like example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac.

The codes are generated automatically and its impossible to make conclusions about the user names. The WordPress default URLs will cause a 404 (not found) error.

Also works for BuddyPress member pages.

Future Proof Mode

As of PHP version 7.1 the functions so far used by this plugin for encryption are marked as deprecated and your webserver may show a PHP Warning. Future Proof Mode causes the plugin to use other encryption functions that are recommended as substitutes.

Unfortunately it is not possible to get the same result. This means that the coded User Slug changes if Future Proof Mode is activated.

If you have not used this plugin yet, it is highly recommended to activate Future Proof Mode.

If you have already used this plugin in the past please consider that activating Future Proof Mode changes the URLs of all Author Pages!

As of PHP version 7.2 the old functions have been removed from PHP core. The mcrypt extension now is available as an unofficial PECL extension. If this PECL extension is installed on your webserver this old functions are still available, so it is not mandatory to activate Future Proof Mode.

If you update to PHP 7.2 or newer without having the mcrypt extension installed on your webserver, the plugin automatically activates Future Proof Mode and it is not possible to deactivate it – otherwise WordPress would crash.

However, sooner or later you’ll be forced to activate Future Proof Mode.

Support

For support check the Support Forum.

Video

How to easily close a HUGE WordPress Security Gap using the free Plugin smart User Slug Hider

Plugin Privacy Information

• This plugin does not set cookies
• This plugin does not collect or store any data
• This plugin does not send any data to external servers

Peters’ Plugins Privacy Information Page

Shortcodes

The plugin adds three shortcodes you can use in your posts:

• [smart_user_slug] – the user slug of the post author – e.g. e9e716def73f76ac
• [smart_user_url] – the url of the post author’s profile page – e.g. example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac
• [smart_user_link] – adds a link to the post author’s profile page

Theme Functions

The plugin adds two functions that can be used in theme files:

• get_smart_user_slug( $author_id ) to get the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used
• the_smart_user_slug( $author_id ) to display the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used

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