https://wptavern.com/webp-by-default-merged-into-core-for-wordpress-6-1

Looks like Shortpixel or similar image conversion tools (that convert to webp) may not be needed. Personally, I optimize and convert image before uploading. Others prefer the tools to do the honours.

What do you guys think? Excited? Disappointed? No opinion???

Chime in.

When CF is disabled (grey cloud, working only as a DNS, not proxy) - everything works fine.

Likewise, websites that don't use Cloudflare Pro (only the free plan) are not affected.

A bit more details - will keep it updated:

Cloudflare - WP Widget problem

This could be a rare problem - I suppose not many people use a similar stack, so it may have gone unnoticed.

Some usual names here - Clourways, GD, Siteground... but some new ones I came across too.

Based on my previous testing, hosting server location doesn't impact page-load speed by a lot.

However, while that holds true for most locations, Australia and southeastern Asia seem to be sort of cut-off. With notcieably longer, slower, average page-load times.

That, in addition to just stupid curiosity, was a reason for giving Cloudflare APO a try.
Unlike the free plan, APO allows Cloudflare to work as a real, proper CDN.
Taking care of cache invalidation, and caching even the dynamic WordPress WooCommerce pages, without any hiccups (mixing cart contents for different users etc.).
That works a lot more trouble-free compared to LiteSpeed.

I also gave Cloudflare Pro a try.
Some extra performance and security options.

This is my article, with step-by-step installation and configuration instructions, test results and comparison with LiteSpeed:
Cloudflare WordPress APO + Pro review

TL/DR - LiteSpeed Enterprise you get for free (included in the hosting price) with a decent shared/reseller hosting provider gets you 90% of the performance gains, so CF APO & Pro are nothing to write home about. But for websites making income, I think they can be a good choice.

I'd like to thank @Ympker for taking the time and helping out with the "visitor subjective feel" testing. Much appreciated.

Let us discuss all matters Wordpress here.

As a starting topic

For WordPress Fanboys and gals

Ranking of fastest WP themes by Kinsta

https://kinsta.com/blog/fastest-wordpress-theme/

Tagging a few random folks I know have tinkered with WP
@bikegremlin @SmallWeb @Ympker

Edit:
Of course the link that I posted from Kinsta blog was written for SEO, by a hosting company that offers managed ‘premium’ WordPress...That smell test they will never pass.

Coming to the themes, I use neve, and generate press and indeed they are one of the better ones

@dosai said:
Hi,

What basic plugins do you guys normally recommend?

I wrote an article about how to choose a high-quality WordPress plugin.
(desperately needs an update for the plugin recommendation list though)
Updated... for the most part (testing Cloudflare APO and its plugin)

And here's a more up-to-date list - BikeGremlin website plugins.
That too needs a minor update.
Updated

Waiting to hear from @vyas and @Ympker

I have been reading a lot (rather, quite a lot) for some our new podcast shows- and this afternoon caught up with some WP news. I thought 2 or 3 items were noteworthy - thought of posting them here.

1. WP- Godaddy flame war in the making:
   https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future

2. WP specialist shops facing tough times?
   elementor aid off 15% staff, WP Lift on the block for sale.

3. WP.org encouraging theme developers to use locally hosted fonts.

@Ympker

https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2022/06/18/complying-with-gdpr-when-using-google-fonts

p.p.s: All my testing over the past week was done mostly on Limitless hosting Singapore shared. I think only once I got alert that the CPU resources had been exceed. Otherwise, the site and DA back end were quite snappy. Not so much for the DE location. Overall mighty impressed with service. Kudos @Lampard

Hello everyone,
I created this mini-plugin over the weekend as I needed a solution for my clients after a german court recently ruled the use of Google Fonts (if not self-hosted) to be violating GDPR. It is safe to assume similar sentences would be applied to embedding Fontawesome via CDN (no legal advice).

So far it contains only the most recent version of Fontawesome fonts (v6.0.0). This, however, should be sufficient, as a client's site that was still on v5.x.x still worked so it appears to be backwards-compatible.
Moving forward, I will likely add a new plugin/folder in the Github repository when v7.x.x is released, or when an upgrade makes sense.

This has been tested with WordPress 5.9 (today). USE AT OWN RISK!

Github Link: Click

GitHub repository with all of my plugins: Click

For those too lazy, there is a pre-compiled latest.ZIP file of the plugin: Click

How to use:

1. Clone the repository and .zip the folder corresponding to the version of FontAwesome Fonts you want (e.g. v600-local stands for version 6.0.0.).

2. Upload Plugin to WordPress.

3. Activate Plugin

4. Use according to the FontAwesome syntax that applies to your version (e.g. for v 6.0.0: https://fontawesome.com/v6/docs).

If you run into any errors pm me or open an issue at Github
Enjoy!

If you are bored: Care to test if it works for you guys, too? ( @vyas @bikegremlin ):-)

So far I preferred Gridpane for creating the staging site, and then pushing it to live using Gridpane (again). Also tinkered around with Server Avatar and exporting a site using All In One WP Backup (not recommended - too many links to update :-_)

Today, I used the "Push to live" feature of Softaculous for the first time.

The catch:
Live site was, say

blog.domainA.tld

Staging site was

domainb.tld

Both were on same hosting plan of course (DA, Singapore- Smallweb).

A quick and not so elegant screenshot:

Now it's been bought out by Elementor. Elementor already offers Elementor Cloud (i.e. they provide the hosting infrastructure for your WP site).

I suppose this acquisition could let them provide a better performance, with lower hardware resources used.

Link to their announcement:
https://elementor.com/blog/elementor-acquires-strattic/

I thought that you WordPress fans would have been celebrating already

This was the first release back in 2003:

https://wordpress.org/news/2003/05/wordpress-now-available/

Reseller hosting accounts include DB usage with the shown "CPU usage," so take that into account.

WordPress hosting resource requirements

@Ympker and @vyas - I tried to make this one short. Let me know if you find anything missing (stats or info), and if this aligns with your experience.

Surely, with a bit of coding and patience (read: "Black Friday sales") the costs can be significantly reduced, but I wanted to make a "pessimistic/realistic" overview, 'cause we all know that only pigeon pictures are really free:

How much does a WordPress website cost?

I've had problems with LiteSpeed updates before. It's probably the best performing caching plugin, but I wonder how they test it.

The biggest problem is that caching errors are not always easily caught - and there's no way for me to add AdSense ads on a test-staging site, it's against Google's policies.

Disabling the plugin has solved the problem.

Some screenshots and error code:
https://io.bikegremlin.com/25709/google-adsense-problem-with-ads-not-showing/

Errors should be still visible on my blog - with LiteSpeed enabled:
https://blog.bikegremlin.com/

https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/6dae6dca-7474-4008-9fe5-4c62b9f12d0a

From the post

The plugins and themes use an insecure version of the Freemius Framework, which is lacking CSRF and/or authorisation in some of its AJAX actions. As a result, any authenticated users, such as subscriber could access the debug logs. Unauthenticated attackers could also make a logged in admin toggle the debug mode via a CSRF attack.

I found some interesting articles recently but still not sure if I really want headless WP.

Headless WP by Automattic:
https://frontity.org/

Headless WP Hosting Providers:

https://www.getshifter.io/

https://www.hardypress.com/

Some interesting articles I found:

https://dev.to/aws-builders/serverless-static-wordpress-on-aws-for-0-01-a-day-1b29

https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/serverless-wordpress-shifter-vs-hardypress-top-headless-wordpress-hosting-options-compared/

It just keeps getting better and better.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/nine-wordpress-plugins-expose-over-1-3-million-sites-to-exploits/439276/#close

"Vulnerabilities in Nine WordPress Plugins
While there were many more plugins found vulnerable, the nine most popular plugins affected well over 1.3 million websites. The vulnerabilities were rated
The following are on the list of nine vulnerable plugins:

Header Footer Code Manager 300,000+ installations
Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads 200,000+ installations
Popup Builder WordPress plugin 200,000+ installations
Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall 200,000+ installations
WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click 100,000+ installations
Database Backup for WordPress 100,000+ installations
GiveWP – Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform 100,000+ installations
Download Manager 100,000+ installations
Advanced Database Cleaner WordPress plugin 80,000+ installations"

Edit: Fixed title.

Woocommerce. Single site only (no multi)
No clarity on GDPR- given the location

You know which site to visit :-)

https://wplift.com/best-wordpress-backup-plugins

They have not mentioned All In One WP Backup - my former preferred backup method. Interesting: reading the comments, looks like the article was originally published in 2016! Nice content refresh by these guys.

Also: Read about the Updraft Plus vulnerability
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2022/02/vulnerability-in-updraftplus-allowed-subscribers-to-download-sensitive-backups

It seems to be getting less and less avoidable. What's the best way to implement it - preferably for free.

I found this - "CeokieYes" plugin.

Seems to be working OK, without slowing the sites down.

But I'm interested to hear any better ideas and recommendations.

Did anyone try this one before? I guess I should just revert to using XAMPP, or install on my vmbox that is running ZorinOS with Network Bridge.

https://localwp.com/

My original post:

Spent the last two days moving my blog to a subdomain. Moved to ClassicPress, with HTMLy as backup.

WordPress 5.9 makes me want to exit the ecosystem altogether.

To which @ympker response

Sounds like a valid strategy if you don't need all the "features" (and bloat) from regular WP. Good luck

@Unixfy commented

WordPress 5.9 looks very exciting. As someone who is maintaining some WP-based solutions for non-technical users, their increased focus on such people is much appreciated.

That said... as a technical person, I'm very much reconsidering whether I want to keep using WP for many of my sites, as I'm pretty happy with a classic editor and not much more..

@angstrom query

I see that there's been renewed activity on HTMLy. It had been abandoned for a few years. I'm wondering whether I should try it again, but it looks a bit too much like a one-man show, which gives me pause

ClassicPress is a fork of an earlier version of WordPress, together with a more conservative development model, right?

WordPress 5.9 makes me want to exit the ecosystem altogether.

Could you elaborate a bit? (I've never used WordPress)

@MichaelCee update

I spent the last two days exiting the ecosystem (For my biz blog). Only three articles so it was an easy copy and paste to HTML for me but for sure need to tweak the formatting.

Edit: I also tried HTMLy, seems decent and could be a contender for my other blogs.

@mfs commented

Customers want Wordpress even if you can bet they won't ever use most of the native editing solutions; nor they care about supposed enhancements to the default experience. Rather, they'd install plugins to revert to what they're accustomed to. On top of that, they'd need a specialized hosting to hold bloat + bloat to defuse the bloat
I see forks have started to appear here and there, the Wordpress singularity anyway is still probably quite far

Finally, @flips asked

Oh? Haven't read the changelog. What did they kill? Or just added bloat?

The above summarizes the "story so far". In case I missed anything, let me know.
I will post my thoughts in the below post.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-core-vulnerabilities/432042/

Rather sketchy details on nature of exploit, or the severity of threat.

If I click the tre vertical dots on the right and select Block Manager, there's lots of blocks, and they're all enabled ...
And the Blocks editor actually works for widgets stuff ... Any idea what to check or do?
(This is a Multisite WP installation, latest stable WP version.)

Check the themes and plugins in the list. If present. maybe disable!

The affected plugins and their versions are:

PublishPress Capabilities
Kiwi Social Plugin
Pinterest Automatic
WordPress Automatic 

The targeted Epsilon Framework themes are:

Shapely
NewsMag
Activello
Illdy
Allegiant
Newspaper X
Pixova Lite
Brilliance
MedZone Lite
Regina Lite
Transcend
Affluent
Bonkers
Antreas
NatureMag Lite – No patch available

Among the top 10 attack machines have
Contabo and OVH ips

( I had read 1.9 Mn sites elsewhere, the bleeping computer link mentions 1.6 Mn. Updated the title)

Demo site: https://2022.wordpress.net/

More info on the 5.9 Dev cycle : https://www.boldgrid.com/support/wordpress-tutorials/wordpress-5-9/

We recently released version 5.11.1 of ACF and ACF PRO.

ACF 5.11 included an important security update related to retrieving values of ACF fields. This caused problems for developers registering fields in PHP and using functions like get_field or the_field to retrieve the field values before ACF has been initialized.

This update affected more people than we initially thought, and we didn’t communicate the impact of the change well enough. To help folks get ahead of problems on their sites, ACF 5.11.1 introduces a WordPress admin notice to warn you if it detects that these functions are being used on fields not correctly registered in PHP.

Take a look at the release post for all the details:

https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-5-11-1-release/

Thanks to more than one acquaintance who wanted to learn, but prefered to have it shown (on a computer), I decided: what the hell. I'll make videos. In English for a start, since most of my countrymen understand Tarzan English.

Being a greedy bastard, I "hit" all the companies who's services I regularly use, with a practically identical email:
"I'm planning to make a series of videos on how to build a WordPress website, explaining it all from the start - domain registration, DNS config, hosting etc...
I'm using your services, so that's what I'll be showing (and practically promoting) in the video.
If you'd like to sponsor the videos, it would be great. If not, you'd get the promotion anyway, since it makes no sense for me to show something I'm not using."

Anyway - this is the first video in the series:
Registering a domain and securing the domain registrar account

It is long, boring and tedious - I'll try to make a script for the following videos and be more "efficient," while still showing everything.
If anyone has the time and the patience - I'd be grateful for any criticism and corrections.

I've also made a very short (2-minute) video version:
How to register a domain

That's too simple for my taste, it doesn't get into any details, but I thought it's a good idea to show just the basics. It came as an after-thought.

I plan to make further videos on:

• Creating a Cloudflare account and using their nameservers, DNS and other services (using the domains registered in the first video).
• Creating an MXroute account, and configuring all the necessary DNS records for email on Cloudflare.
• Creating a reseller hosting account.
• Automating website backups (with HostMantis and Hetzner).
• Creating a WordPress website (the basics, installation, config. etc).

@Mason feel free to delete this thread if it crosses the line of "shameless self-promotion." It is in fact sponsored content, after all.
Having said that - I really am genuinely interested in feedback, especially any corrections.
My websites and Youtube channel have helped me get some great expert lessons/feedback over the years, and I think that's brilliant. Likewise, I think it's nice sharing one's own knowledge and experience with those looking too learn. It's a win-win as the Americans say.

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/theme-releases/full-site-front-end-editing

How to configure Cloudflare for WordPress

I needed something like this to make it easy when configuring any new websites/accounts for friends and acquaintantces. 1000 times better than logging into my account to see "now what were those settings that should be disabled, but aren't noticeable to cause problems right away..."

As always - any improvements, especially corrections are very welcome.

Main types I have tried/ used so far include:

• Scripts (js and css)
• Images
• Videos
• Audio

What are the typical CDNs you use/ have used? Please classify under Free/ Freemium/ Freemium, also the primaty use case. Would be great to create a list as a resource to the community. The info can be in the following format:

Name of CDN --> Type (Free/Freemium...) ---> Primary use case ---> Your experience /short review.

For example, I use Shortpixel for image compression. optimization and Shortpixel Adaptive Image for image delivery. Both offer a freemium model.

Shortpixel --> Freemium --> Image compression or optimization --> My review: This wordpress plugin is my facvourite for reducing size of images. If you look around for a deal, you may get upto 25,000 credits for around 10 or 12 US dollars, enough for most sites. Do you need this at all? For image compression - not really, There are Cli tools available for Mac and Windows (jpegoptim, optipng...) that to the job. But for the beginner/ eeryday used, much recommended. Linky link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-image-optimiser/)

p.s: using the wrong settings for CDN OR tinkering around too much with the settings can result in a broken site. My blog is a classic example of it!

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/theme-releases/divi-condition-options

Example use cases in their blog post mentions scenarios such as:

Logged In Status: Creating A Paid Online Publication

Date & Time: Creating A Recurring Promotional Banner

Cart Contents: Capturing Abandoned Carts In WooCommerce

@flips @Unixfy Divi just keeps and keeps improving. The Performance Update recently, now this. Adding to that, support is super responsive these days and logs into my website via remote token to fix problem within 1-2 hours. Just awesome!

My favourites are probably very popular already but never let me down so far:

Backup: Updraft Plus (Free version)

Migration: AIO WP Migration (Unlimited Extension)
Just migrated a website of 9GB and 12000+ files without trouble today. From an old WP 5.6.x install.

Stopping WordPress Comment SPAM

How to add Google search to your WordPress website
(and Why I think that's a good idea )

100% plugin-free solution is welcome, but this is the best I've managed so far (will look into it further when I find the time).

What is AMP?

How to implement AMP for a WordPress site - and connect Google Analytics

The working Google Analytics implementation method has changed with the AMP plugin updates, so I've left the old ("legacy") code for reference, but included the code that works (for) now.

There are plugins for this, but I was looking for a plugin-free solution (and have found it). It's better to not use any plugins for stuff that can be done with just a little child-theme custom code. Makes things faster and more stable in the long run.

Step-by-step, "idiot friendly" - just how I need and like tutorials to be, for when I forget it in a few years time and need to configure it again.

My setup doesn't use any plugins - which I think is best. Just a little custom code in a child theme.

With a general article on website monetization models I've tried.

I've created a few websites using the very same theme, and mostly the same choice of plugins.

However, one particular site, let's call it "A" gives a PHP error code.

"Undefined variable $custom_content in /home/blabla/public_html/wp-content/themes/generatepress_child/functions.php on line 51"

Other sites use the same theme and the same child-theme custom code.

They all run fine on PHP 7.4.
With PHP 8.0, site A starts reporting that problem.

Using exactly the same PHP configuration (extensions, version etc.).

Is it possible to have PHP configured differently by the hosting provider on a per-cPanel account level?
The only notable difference between website A and the others is the time when the cPanel account was created.

I still haven't tried completely deleting the cPanel account and re-creating it. Not sure if that makes sense to try.