redsand

Hi Jonathan,

I appreciate you taking the time to write this review. We appreciate constructive criticism as well, and will definitely always work hard to keep improving.

It’s also worth noting that the support team seem to give very professional and complete answers, even on the wordpress.org support forum to users who haven’t read the pinned posts telling them not to use that forum.
I don’t know how they can do this for a Free product but the initiative and service are highly commendable.

Thank you. We do work hard to provide excellent support…We want our plugin users to know that we genuinely care about them, and work hard to provide a flawless experience.

That being said, some of your statements (about the plugin and about us) went a bit overboard, and cast us in a very negative light as they do not accurately reflect the facts.

I need to address these inaccuracies.

The tool is very effective at blocking but will also block some genuine customers and sometimes even site managers.

I have to disagree with you here, as this simply is not true. If a user is having an issue with this, then there is a major issue with the site configuration…That’s a site management issue, not an issue with the plugin. The plugin gives admins free reign to do what they need to do.

For example, if a wide ip address range is blocked because of suspected malicious traffic, then according to RedSand Tech Admin it should be the responsibility of any internet user coming from that country or service provider to be aware that any mysterious messages they get may be because their network is considered suspicious.

This is important to understand: With WP-SpamShield, nothing is ever blocked due to “suspected” malicious traffic. It is only blocked when there is proven malicious traffic (a documented track record), and when that network is used primarily for malicious traffic. There is quite a big difference.

Also some internet users don’t have so much choice: users who do not live in what might be called a “free” country may have very limited choice of internet provider and indeed may not have the “freedom” to switch provider or even to leave that country.

Even within this paradigm, there is plenty of choice. You’re making it sound like the plugin blocks large portions of the internet. That simply is not true.

According to RedSand support philosophy such users should be banned from the internet if their location is considered risky.

That simply is not true. That is a inference based on false assumptions about us. Nothing in our track record supports this statement. You need to understand that when there is a documented track record of a particular location being used primarily for malicious traffic, hacking, malware, DDoS attacks etc, it would be irresponsible to not block it. Do not ignore the fact that this is a security plugin.

Worrying indeed for the future of internet freedom.

If the previous statement was true, that might be worrisome…however it simply is not. We’re huge advocates for internet freedom and privacy.

However the following product claim appears demonstrably untrue:
“
ZERO FALSE POSITIVES

Regarding zero false positives, that still is 100% true and we have the stats to back it up.

We’re not stopping anyone from commenting…they still can, in each and every case. Each of the issues you’ve reported to us, we’ve addressed. Anyone who uses a VPN will occasionally have to log off the current server, and switch to another one. This applies to us as well, as our entire company uses VPNs to access the internet for security, with no exceptions.

Apart from the connectivity issues it also appears from the various threads that unpatched devices especially smartphones may also be blocked.

I would request that users stick to their own experiences, and not comment on the experiences of others, and other threads. That assessment is incorrect, as those were legitimate security issues, not just unpatched or mildly out of of date software.

If all sites blocked all users who are unpatched (or coming from suspect network), then all users would have a strong incentive to update and sort out their connection issues pretty quickly.

But right now, how many of your potential site visitors are likely to update their phone or whatever just to access *your* site?

This is based on an inaccurate premise, so again I would ask that you comment solely on your own experience, and not the experience of others. You are making inferences here that do not match the reality of the situation.

While I appreciate all points of view, a number of your statements went into the realm of exaggeration and embellishment. I would ask that you be a bit more circumspect in the future, and avoid making inaccurate statements like this. Thank you.

– Scott

@elsieblogger,

If you were blocked from our website, it means there is a security issue with the network or computer you’re trying to access from, and were blocked by the firewall.

If you had an issue posting a support request there, you could have posted a support request on the forums here to let us know, and we could have looked into it and gotten in touch.

Leaving a negative review because we have tight security on our site, and without getting in touch with us first for help, is not a very kind thing to do. Keep in mind that being in the line of work we are in, we get attacked a lot, and have to keep a high level of security.

Mods: I would ask that this review be removed.

Hi @spespam,

Almost 100% of reports of this type of error have nothing to do with the plugin itself, but rather are due to a site config issue or conflict.

Step 9 in our Troubleshooting Guide covers this specific issue, and gives the steps to resolve it:

One or more users on your site consistently receive a JavaScript and cookies related error message similar to this: “Sorry, there was an error. Please enable JavaScript and Cookies in your browser and try again.” (For comments, registrations, contact forms, or anything else.)

Your comment:

No error messages like cookies, javascript or even my IP blocked for some reason I don’t know

Regarding the issue in that post, I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say that. Your IP address was not blocked, and we explained the issues involved and tried to help you. You never replied to my question about whether you had taken the necessary steps to secure your network, and never submitted a support request for us to help you look into it further.

As I’ve pointed out several times in your previous support forum posts, and as noted in the sticky post, we don’t provide support through the forums here, but if you would like to submit a support request at the plugin’s official support page, we’ll be more than happy to help you resolve the issue.

If you prefer Akismet, you are welcome to use that instead. Best of luck.

– Scott

I never thought it was your intent to hack our site. Please don’t think that…The malicious traffic coming form your network was/is likely happening without your knowledge. That’s how malware works. It can lay dormant, or be active at different times, and any site or network you interact with using that device can become infected (if they aren’t protected). Due to the nature of our business (anti-spam/security), we get attacked a lot, so we have a high level of security.

Have you taken the steps I mentioned earlier: scanning your computer, network, phone with security software, and making sure all of your Operating Systems (OS) and browsers are fully up to date?

Running extremely out of date OS and browsers is a major security risk, and unfortunately no security software can compensate for that.