redsand

Hi Kimbert,

Nothing to worry about there. Just minor text changes between versions. Sometimes a security plugin will detect a change in a file and it’s not in synch with the repository. That file doesn’t affect how the plugin runs. If you have any concerns, just install a fresh copy.

– Scott

@fruitful

Just a follow up… We’ve kept an eye out for contact from you but haven’t received any support requests.

We’re still happy to help. Just us know.

Hi C,

Thank you for your interest in WP-SpamShield! I’ll be happy to answer your questions. 🙂

WP-SpamShield will protect every type of WordPress form from spam. It’s designed to do something no other plugin can do: protect every type of third party form plugin out there, without requiring specific code for that plugin. This is part of the Miscellaneous Form Protection feature.

It does have specific support for Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms, but it goes much further.

It actually does mention in the docs that it covers more than comment, trackback, and contact form spam (for example MailChimp is an email opt-in):

Supports: Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, JetPack Contact Forms & Comments, BuddyPress, bbPress, WooCommerce, s2Member, WP-Members, Mailchimp, Fast Secure Contact Form, Formidable Forms, almost all WordPress forms, and almost all WordPress registration forms. Automatically!

and:

Includes a Spam-Free Contact Form, and Anti-Spam for Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, JetPack Contact Forms, and Most Other Forms
Includes drop-in spam-free contact form, with easy one-click installation. Easy to use – no configuration necessary, but you can configure it if you like. (See Installation for info.) WP-SpamShield also includes automatic anti-spam protection for Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, JetPack Contact Forms, Fast Secure Contact Forms, Formidable Forms, and more. (You don’t have to do a thing…just add your Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, JetPack Contact Forms, or other forms to your site, and they will automatically be protected.) It will automatically protect most forms on your WordPress site from automated spam, even if they are not listed here.

We say “most” in order to not overstate things, but it basically means “all”. Every once in a while a user may report a compatibility issue with a certain plugin (which we promptly address), but even that is extremely rare, on the order of 1 out of 1000 (or even less). After using it, the question you’re more likely to ask is, “what is it NOT compatible with?” 🙂 It’s a short list. If you ever do have a compatibility issue, just let us know via our Tech Support Form, and we’ll take care of it in short order.

You can disable Trackbacks and Pingbacks in the WP-SpamShield settings or WordPress settings. If you don’t use commenting at all, you can disable this in your WordPress settings. ( Settings -> Discussion -> Default article settings -> Allow people to post comments on new articles )

What I’d recommend is that you install it and try it, and test it out. I’m confident you’ll be pleased.

If you have any issues, we provide thorough documentation, a helpful Troubleshooting Guide, FAQs and Tech Support.

If you end up deciding not to use it, it’s no problem. The plugin is a good WordPress citizen and will clean up after itself, removing all traces of itself from your site and WordPress database.

I hope this info helps! 🙂

– Scott

Can explain what the exact issue is and what you’re trying to resolve?

Please be specific.

Hi simonmharding,

I’m sorry to hear that the plugin did not provide the experience you expected.

It’s really important for users to read through the full plugin documentation, as this is addressed there. I realize documentation is not always clear, and this is something we work to improve.

We have the following on the front page:

NOTE: As with any JS/CSS minification & caching plugin, it’s important to test, test, test before implementing on a production site. Because of the type of plugin it is, this plugin may not work for every site out there, but that does not mean the plugin is broken. If you have any issues, please submit a support request so we can look into it and make it as compatible as possible for everyone.

And this in the FAQs:

<h4>Does this plugin have any known issues?</h4>

<p>Just one that we know of.</p>

<p>Moving JavaScript to the footer of your page may create issues with some responsive themes that need the JS libraries to be in the head section of the code. If that’s the case then this plugin may not be right for you. Even for us, it’s right for 80% of our sites but not all of them. For the rest we use the RS Head Cleaner Lite plugin, which does everything the same, except for the JavaScript-to-Footer functionality.

Test this plugin out on your site before deciding if it will be the right solution for you. Normally we would create an options page to let you turn the JS-to-Footer feature off, but this plugin is all about speeding up your site, and that means minimal calls to the database, so unfortunately it would defeat the purpose of this plugin if we added the ability to change that.

If you don’t want the JS-to-Footer feature, use RS Head Cleaner Lite. It has all the same features except it won’t move JavaScript to the footer.

Just a thought for the future: This might have been better as a support request instead of a review.

If you would still like support, we’ll be happy to help. 🙂

Hi michaelquinn,

I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

In general, you won’t have any problems with caching and the plugins being auto-updated through JetPack or the built-in WordPress update system. (The “
Easy Updates Manager” plugin is also a great option for this!) It’s only if a major change is introduced by a plugin.

Basically, don’t worry about it unless you start experiencing issues.

The plugin detects if caching is enabled, and does account for this.

The main reason we put that in the notes, is that a lot of people forget about the effect caching has, so this should remind them to check that and clear the cache. The fact you’re at aware of caching’s effect on the site is good, and that should serve you well.

If it helps to know, every site we manage (include ours, client sites, and test sites) has some combination of automatic plugin/theme updates and caching installed alongside WP-SpamShield, and there are zero issues.

Regarding caching, I would like to make one recommendation, that you update your content at regular intervals with the Preloading option, such as once daily, in order to prevent problems. (Especially if using CSS/JS minification plugins.) Preloading is key because it runs a cron job to update the site content at regular intervals, so it will be cached before users or search engine bots hit the site. It will cause a slight increase to server load for the duration of the preloading, process so you should schedule this at a slow time for your site. If you have under a couple hundred pages, doing this daily is not problem. If you have significantly more, that’s when I would extend it to 48 hours or so and make some tweaks to the settings. We don’t recommend using lengths of one week or longer as you are mentioning. We usually would recommend a limit of 48 hours max, but that is up to you. If you do this, you will likely not need to manually clear the cache very often.

Just to give context to this recommendation, we do know a thing or two about site optimization, and I’m understating that a bit. 🙂 We do site speed optimization day in and day out for clients, and have every single one of them outperforming sites hosted on more expensive servers. For example, we even have sites on shared hosting dramatically outperforming sites hosted on VPS/dedicated/managed servers (with comparable traffic), even ones that are specifically “WordPress optimized”.

I hope this info helps!

– Scott

Hi Fruitful Code,

We’ll be happy to help.

To get in touch with us, please go to the WP-SpamShield Support Page. Once we receive your support request, we’ll be in touch to coordinate. It will ask you to review the FAQs and Troubleshooting Guide before submitting, and this should end up being helpful, as it will give you a better idea of technical aspects of WP-SpamShield. (We have similarly studied your plugin in the past before adding it to our known conflicts page a while ago.) The main advice we have is to just make sure your plugin follows the WordPress login/registration coding standards very tightly. If your plugin uses the same process as the WordPress login/registration pages, things should automatically work. This will also help you be more compatible with any other registration anti-spam and/or login protection plugins. Also, there are some hooks in WP-SpamShield that we added for developers, and we can give you specific info on how to implement depending on what you need. (You may not need them at all though.) We’ll be happy to go more detail via email once we hear from you. It would be great to get our plugins to work together.

– Scott