wfscott

@kevs23,

Here is a great write up of what to expect from Wordfence as far as protection and upside. For the majority of users it is hassle free and free of any downsides! It simply protects and alerts you of anything you should be aware of.

It only prevents people from seeing your site if they are trying to do something wrong (infect your website or log in using a brute force method) or if you manually block a suspicious visitor/IP address.

As you can see on the Optimizing The Firewall documentation page, both enabling the optimization and removing the optimization is easy, as it just takes a few clicks in most cases.

Being that you’re on GoDaddy, if you decide to go ahead and optimize the firewall, you can just follow the Firewall Optimization Setup.

-Scott

@kevs23, no problem!

If optimized properly, you will be better protected and shouldn’t notice much difference as far as a performance downside. By having the firewall in it’s current state you would notice any downsides you would likely otherwise see. I believe having the firewall optimized is beneficial.

Feel free to let me know if you run into anything.

-Scott

Hello @kevs23,

It is recommended that you optimize the firewall. By doing this, you’re assuring that the firewall loads before any other (potentially malicious) code. There is a guide to this process here to make it easier. In most cases, optimization is accomplished by just clicking through the short procedure.

If you’re using SiteGround as a host, there will be additional steps.

To answer your question — you are certainly better off by just having Wordfence installed, however, by optimizing the firewall, you’re gaining a greater level of protection.

Let me know if you have any issues.

-Scott

Hello @daftshadow,

Sorry for the issues you’re having. Can you please let me know who your hosting provider is so I can take a look into this?

-Scott

Hello @wappguru,

Using two firewalls together at different application levels is generally acceptable. Being that one is through your hosting, and Wordfence is working through WordPress, you should be fine there. If you experience any issues, I would start by disabling the VPS firewall. As far as performance, you shouldn’t notice much difference using both.

As for the other plugins, a general rule of thumb is to ideally not have two plugins which touch the same functionality, such as login. Wordfence does a great job at login security and having two plugins focusing on that could cause issues at some point.

Give the two firewalls a try, and in the event you only need one, keep in mind that Wordfence has a lot of options to keep you aware and protected.

-Scott

Hello @guinom,

Could you please send me over diagnostics via (Wordfence > Tools > Diagnostics > Send report by email) to wftest [at] wordfence [dot] com

Please include your forum username in that second input box, and let me know here when that is sent over. I’ll be happy to take a look!

-Scott

You’re welcome – I’m glad to hear you got it fixed!

Hello @francarame,

While we don’t officially support issues with Windows, I can point you in the right direction.

If you can, check to see if the option “Scan files outside your WordPress installation” is unchecked. (Wordfence > Scan > Scan options and scheduling > Scan files outside your WordPress installation)

If that box is checked, uncheck it and try running another scan. If you get similar errors, you will need to look into changing the permissions of your root directory D:\inetpub\webs\violacappellettiit\ in order to allow Wordfence to access it during the scan.

Hello @risebatplay,

You should not have any issues logging into your site while using a different IP address or VPN.

If you have notifications setup to alert you of new administrator logins, you will receive an email notification letting you know the IP address and location with regard to the new login.

-Scott

Hello @kristal13,

If you could please do the following, I’ll give it a look and see what might be causing the issue.

• Kill the existing scan if it is still running (The “Start New Scan” button turns in to a “Stop” button while the scan is running)
• Go to your Scan > Scan Options and Scheduling page and locate the “Performance Options”
• Set “Maximum execution time for each scan stage” to 20 on the options page
• Set “Time limit that a scan can run in seconds” to 21600
• Click to “Save Changes”
• Go to the Tools > Diagnostics page
• In the “Debugging Options” section check the circle “Enable debugging mode”
• Click to “Save Changes”.
• Start a new scan
• Copy the last 20 lines from the Log (click the “Show Log” link) or so of the activity log and paste them here

-Scott

You’re welcome!

You can opt out of summary emails by going to Wordfence > Global Options > Activity Report tab (right under Email Alert Preferences) and uncheck “Enable email summary”.

Yes, you will still be alerted about those items you left turned on in the Email Alert Preferences tab.

-Scott

@jedimoff,

That was indeed an alert of what was blocked in the attempted attack. Glad you got it figured out!

Hi @jedimoff,

Could you please send me an email with a screenshot of the full email you received to scottm [at] wordfence [dot] com

I’ll check it over for you and see how to proceed.

-Scott

You’re welcome!

Hi @kevs23,

This depends on what the bulk of the emails are that you’re receiving. If they are mainly emails in regards to updating plugins, (the “Alert on warnings” option), you could simply uncheck that and keep an eye on them to update yourself.

As far as what I would suggest if you wanted to receive an absolute bare minimum — I would keep the following active:

-Email me if Wordfence is deactivated

-Alert on critical problems

-Alert me when someone with administrator access signs in & Only alert me when that administrator signs in from a new device or location

You can also opt out of the email summary, or change it to monthly instead of weekly.

Of course, keep in mind by deactivating these notifications, you may be lowering your ability to quickly react to an attack or vulnerability.

-Scott