What right do you have to do this?

  • This update to mandatory use of V3 is obnoxious. CF7 is a contact form plugin and has no right to force the injection of extra javascript (and Google advertising) on every page of a site. It slows down the whole site, just to use a contact form. That is ridiculous, and beyond the remit of the developer.

    There is no reason whatsoever to use V3 reCaptha on this plugin. But if that is what the developer wants, then at least give users the option to stay with V2, which works perfectly.

    I have rolled back to the previous version, so at least I have solved the problem in the short term. But I won’t wait too long before ditching CF7 if there is no sensible update in the near future.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • I do believe that the plugin developers have the right to do anything to their code because it is their code and is freely available. I am also very upset by the change but I do not believe that they have done anything obnoxious or beyond their rights.

    Firstly, I would like to express my appreciation to the author for creating such a great plugin. And I agree with thinkcraft that the author has the rights to amend the code since it is not a commercial product.

    Likewise, bobsled have rights too, to stop using the plugin if it is no longer suitable for him. “Ridiculous” is not a nice word to say if bobsled is using the plugin for free. Of course, it would be great if bobsled have donated to the author to support further developments.

    I agree with bobsled on one point. The author could add an option to choose between V2 or V3. I have checked Google FAQ (https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq) and V2 is not going away any time soon (Unlike V1 where it is deprecated in favour of V2).

    Could the situation be handled better? I believe the author could consider doing a beta test to gather feedback on V3 before rolling out in a go-all-the-way basis. With a huge installation base of 5 million, a change in feature could affect a lot of users if there is no backward compatibility. So the author has a somewhat huge indirect responsibility.

    I do hope the author can reconsider rolling back the change first or include reCAPTCHA V3 on its own contact form only. Right now, reCAPTCHA V3 is having unintended effect on my other pages too.

    Thread Starter bobsled

    (@bobsled)

    I agree with you @thinkcraft that the developer of a free plugin has the right to change the usage of a plugin.

    But with over 5 million users, comes some responsibility. So what thought was given to users? How many want Google plastered on every page of their site? Very few I would suspect.

    I have wasted a day or more of productivity om this issue. Multiply that by 5 million.

    Free or not, and I use plenty of paid plugins, plugin developers do have a responsibility to their WordPress users.

    I agree with you @bobsled, updating the plugin without thinking about the consequences or forcing a functionality is at least irresponsible.

    reCAPTCHA v3 was added by the plugin author (Takayuki Miyoshi – not me) after repeated requests from CF7 users to do this.

    If others reading this are having trouble with reCAPTCHA v3 on their site, I recommend you check your Integration Setup using https://contactform7.com/recaptcha/.

    I believe the author could consider doing a beta test to gather feedback on V3 before rolling out in a go-all-the-way basis.

    @turboflash that’s an interesting idea, but I’m not aware of an easy way for that to be done for plugins hosted only in the WordPress Plugin Directory.

    We run the SVN version of CF7 on several of our test sites for Contact Form 7 Skins & had tested the V5.1 update with reCAPTCHA v3 before it was released without seeing any problems.

    But of course we are no substitute for 5+ million active installs.

    I believe other very popular plugins including Yoast SEO have had significant user dissatisfaction following some updates. I’d be interested to see how they are responding to this issue.

    @buzztone Thanks for sharing your experience.

    Personally, I feel Contact Form 7 should do what it is named to do, provide contact form (and with reCAPTCHA on its own form as a feature). If I need reCAPTCHA V3 enabled across the entire site, I will look for a plugin that specifically does that.

    Anyway, from the number of support requests coming in, author’s plate is full right now so I shall not add on to his plate. Hopefully he can come up with a solution soon.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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