When can we expect the Freemius update?

We’re due to release an update for the EU VAT Assistant and our other plugins this week, after testing them with WooCommerce 6.3. The release date should be today or tomorrow at the latest.

The EU VAT Assistant contains a copy of the Freemius framework because it bundles a “compact” copy of the Aelia Foundation Classes framework (AFC, for short). We already updated the standalone AFC last week, all our premium plugins are already covered. If you’re running any of our premium products, or any other plugin that uses Freemius, then you will be covered as well, as the Freemius framework automatically loads the most recent version of its files (i.e. if you have version 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 installed at the same time, only 2.4.3 is loaded, no matter who loads it).

In addition to that, the EU VAT Assistant doesn’t actually use the Freemius files (it doesn’t even load them). If that’s the only plugin containing the Freemius framework, then its files aren’t actually being used, and they won’t cause issues.

Hi Diego,

Thank you for your answer. The plugin is still listed at https://wpscan.com/plugin/woocommerce-eu-vat-assistant
If the code isn’t used, why is it included in the first place?

Sites of my client that are using this plugin, don’t have the standalone AFC plugin or premium versions.

The AFC framework is a set of libraries and dependencies that our plugins use and share. Instead of following the legacy approach of bundling the dependencies with each plugin, potentially carrying around multiple copies of them, in different versions, we extracted them into an external module, in the form of the AFC framework, which contains all of them. The “client” plugins then load the ones they need.

Our standard design involves distributing the AFC framework as a separate, standalone plugin, so that there is only one copy of it in each installation. This was the case with the EU VAT Assistant as well, and it worked well for years, until someone at WordPress asked us to change the design and bundle the framework directly within the plugin. Still, he bundled AFC framework is still the same one used by all our plugins, therefore it contains all the files as well. Their mere presence won’t cause issues.

We didn’t plan to design a “light” version of the framework for the EU VAT Assistant, both because the framework was always meant to exist in a single version. Also, the EU VAT Assistant is reaching its end of life (see announcement from January 2022), and we opted not to make radical changes at this point, when the code is in maintenance mode.

Version 2.0.28.220224 of the EU VAT Assistant, with the updated Freemius library, is now available. We’re not familiar with the WP Scan site, therefore we wouldn’t be able to say when they will update their listing. If they run a scan periodically, they should be able to detect the change soon.

I’ve just updated the plugin on both sites, so that must be okay. I’ve told the client that some action needs to be taken because of the end-of-life of this plugin, as I’m just doing the technical maintenance of the sites.

And thanks again for the explanation!

That was no bother at all. Please let your customer know that the EU VAT Assistant won’t “disappear” or stop working all of a sudden. We set the 30 June 2022 as the “end of life” date, but the plugin will keep working after that day (unless WooCommerce introduces significant breaking changes all of a sudden, but that’s unlikely, as their policy is to release backward compatible versions).

That’s good to know and they don’t have to rush it, but now they still have some time to plan the migration. I just don’t like to wait until it’s (almost) too late. ??