Anti-spam Reloaded

Description

This is fork of successful Anti-spam plugin v5.5 written by webvitalii, for more info visit GitHub Fork.
From version 5.6 maintained by kudlav.

• GitHub

Anti-spam Reloaded plugin blocks 100% of automatic spam messages in comments section and also blocks all trackbacks.No captcha required.

Plugin is simple and easy to use: just install it and it just works.

Blocked comments can be stored in the Spam area and converted to regular comments if needed.

Anti-spam Reloaded plugin is GDPR compliant and does not store any other user data except of the behaviour mentioned above.

Plugin blocks spam only in comments section..
Plugin does not block manual spam (submitted by spammers manually via browser).

Compatibility

All modern browsers and IE11+ are supported.
Anti-spam Reloaded plugin works with disabled JavaScript. Users with disabled JavaScript should manually fill current year before submitting the comment.

Server compatibility:

• WordPress 3.3 – 6.5
• PHP 5.6 – 8.2
• Doesn’t use jQuery

Plugin is incompatible with:

• Disqus
• Jetpack Comments
• AJAX Comment Form
• bbPress

If site has caching plugin enabled and cache is not cleared or if theme does not use ‘comment_form’ action
and there is no plugin inputs in comments form – plugin tries to add hidden fields automatically using JavaScript.

How does it work?

The blocking algorithm is based on 2 methods: ‘invisible js-captcha’ and ‘invisible input trap’ (aka honeypot technique).

‘invisible js-captcha’

The ‘invisible js-captcha’ method is based on fact that bots does not have JavaScript on their user-agents.
Extra hidden field is added to comments form.
It is the question about the current year.
If the user visits site, than this field is answered automatically with JavaScript, is hidden by JavaScript and CSS and invisible for the user.
If the spammer will fill year-field incorrectly – the comment will be blocked because it is spam.

‘invisible input trap’

The ‘invisible input trap’ method is based on fact that almost all the bots will fill inputs with name ’email’ or ‘url’.
Extra hidden field is added to comments form.
This field is hidden for the user and user will not fill it.
But this field is visible for the spammer.
If the spammer will fill this trap-field with anything – the comment will be blocked because it is spam.

Screenshots

Installation

1. Install and activate the plugin on the Plugins page
2. Try to submit a comment on your site being logged out
3. Enjoy life without spam in comments

Settings (optional)

In “Settings => Anti-spam Reloaded” you can enable saving blocked comments as spam in the spam section (disabled by default).
Saving blocked comments is useful for testing and debug purpose. You can easily mark comment as “not spam” if some of the comments were blocked by mistake.

You hide the info block with total spam blocked counter in the admin comments section in the “Screen Options” section of comments page.
The visibility option for this info block is saved per user (enabled by default).

Reviews

Does the job

renetb November 10, 2022

Really good plug-in. Keep up the good work! René

Love it.

narinder912 May 17, 2022

Wow. This is a real lifesaver. I get alerts from WordPress whenever a comment is added, and the alerts for spam comments were killing me. This plugin saves me time. Thanks.

Thank you! Great plugin

Corinne May 6, 2022

Thank you for this fork and maintenance. It was my go-to comment anti-spam plugin in its previous iteration. Great straightforward light plugin that just works. I missed its minimalism. Lovely to have it back!

Thanks for picking this up.

MarkRH March 11, 2022 1 reply

I had stopped updating the other plugin at version 5.5 due to the changes to it. Since I’ve found and installed this, it has blocked 75 comments. It’s something so simple to use but effective. Mark H.

Essential basic comment spam protection

thompsonpaul January 31, 2022 1 reply

Was so disappointed when the original version of this got taken over and bloated beyond all recognition. Huge appreciation to @kudlav for resurrecting and maintaining such an essential plugin. Simple, lightweight plugin that protects server resources and keeps comment sections clean. Have used it for years on a dozen sites with no comment spam issues at all, despite having to block thousands per month in some cases.

One of my must-have plugins

stebato June 27, 2021

Super easy to use, and super results! For many years I was very satisfied with Webvitaly′s Anti-spam. However, When version 5.6 arrived (and Vebvitality disappeared) I was vey disappointed and desperately looked for a replacement. I found nothing that satisfied my need until a year later when I happily discovered Kudlav had launced Anti-spam Reloaded. Thanks a lot, Kudlav!

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

6.5 – 2021-07-02

• Improve accessibility – assign label to the year input

6.4 – 2020-08-12

• Bugfix: JavaScript wasn’t on some pages invoked (use DOMContentLoaded listener on document again)

6.3 – 2020-07-31

• Compatibility with WordPress 5.5 (Use comment or empty string for the comment_type)
• Use only DOMContentLoaded listener for autofill and auto-hide (affect 1% of browsers)

6.2 – 2020-06-12

• Internationalize plugin
• Czech translation
• Minify JS file, use wp_enqueue versioning
• Dont use extract() in antispamrel_check_comment
• Fix undefined variables

6.1 – 2020-04-22

• Security improvements
• Hide antispam version from HTML

6.0 – 2020-04-20

• New maintainer kudlav – updated links and docs
• Sanitizing and cleaner HTML output
• Changed prefixes
• Code + Readme simplified
• Use let instead of var in JS

5.6 – 2020-04-17

• New maintainer kudlav – updated links and docs
• Removed links to paid version
• Stat info is no longer warning

Previous versions can be found in original Anti-spam repository.