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Web Dev + WordPress + Security
283 posts related to: Stop User Enumeration in WordPress

Check 404 URLs in Database

There are many ways to do this. I wanted the quickest and easiest. I run Yourls on several sites to create shortlinks for my books. Each instance of Yourls contains many URLs. I like to keep my books current. URLs tend to change and break over time. It is a chore to check 800+ links in each of my books, page after page. So I wanted a quick way to check for 404 and other broken links. In this post, […] Continue reading »

Protect Yourls Login Page with Apache/.htaccess

For those who know, YOURLS makes it super easy to host your own URL shortening service. I use Yourls on several sites and it works great at generating shortlinks for otherwise long and tedious URLs. So they’re easier to share, remember, social media, etc. Yourls is developed by a well-respected developer and is 100% FREE and open source for everyone. It’s a truly great app and highly recommended. Continue reading »

Notes on Logging Into WordPress.org via Authenticator App

Screenshot showing the Two-factor authentication screen at WordPress.org

So yesterday I got a new phone and could not log in to my account at WordPress.org. Why? Because I had enabled Two-factor authentication (2FA) on my account as an extra layer of security. I had been completing this 2FA step on my old phone using the Google Authenticator app, which works great. The problem is that I had not yet transferred my Authenticator codes to my new phone. So when I tried to log in to my WordPress.org account, […] Continue reading »

Rules Guiding My Web Dev Work

Was thinking of the things that are absolutely essential for my line of work, at least for my own operation working with WordPress and web development. Not so much the technical and code side of things, but more of the “meta” or “big picture” type of stuff. Some are simple and others require a bit of explanation. Some are specific to working on the Web, and some probably would apply to any line of work. But I am a web […] Continue reading »

How to Block Darknet Market Spam

Screenshot showing darknet comment spams

Lately my some of my WordPress-powered sites have been hit with a very specific brand of comment spam, which may be referred to as “darknet market spam”. The spam is simple but persistent. And there’s a LOT of it. Very annoying. Fortunately it is trivial to stop. Here are a few ways to block teh darknet market spam.. Continue reading »

Ultimate Block List to Stop AI Bots

More than you might think, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) bots are crawling your site and scraping your content. They are collecting and using your data to train software like ChatGPT, OpenAI, DeepSeek, and thousands of other AI creations. Whether you or anyone approves of all this is not my concern for this post. The focus of this post is aimed at website owners who want to stop AI bots from crawling their web pages, as much as […] Continue reading »

8G Firewall Update v1.4

Good news! The 8G Firewall is updated to version 1.4. This latest update resolves numerous false positives and bugs that have been reported since version 1.3, when 8G was taken out of beta and officially launched last year. Continue reading »

Custom Headers with Simple Download Counter WordPress Plugin

Quick tip for my free WordPress plugin, Simple Download Counter. SDC is optimized for successful downloads in most server environments, but there always is an exception to the rule. For example, on some servers, a download’s content-length header may be calculated incorrectly for GZIP and possibly other file formats. This tutorial explains how to define your own headers for downloads when using Simple Download Counter, so you can dial in perfect downloads for any server configuration. Continue reading »

8G Firewall Addon: Protect Against Rogue PHP File Attacks

Been getting hit with massive attacks on all sites. Very large VPN/proxy network. Relentless requests 24/7, thousands of requests every minute, just non-stop attacks. All URL requests targeting rogue PHP files. The attacks were weighing on precious server resources. Server held up fine but this nonsense needed to stop. So I wrote a tight little addon for my 8G Firewall. Blocks the entire attack with just a few clicks.. Continue reading »

Get Yourself Some Backup Internet Service Providers

As a full-time web developer and typical human being, I rely on the Internet for a great many things. So when the Internet is not available, my work (and play) comes to a grinding halt. Fortunately my primary ISP is pretty solid, but it still goes down every once in a while. So to maintain my workflow (and general sanity), having a backup Internet service provider is absolutely essential. Here’s one way to do it.. Continue reading »

WordPress pre_get_posts + Combined Category Archives

This is a quick post following from the latest redesign of my WordPress plugins website, Plugin Planet. There, I make use of WordPress great query functionality to display archives of multiple categories. For example, here is the combined archive for BBQ Pro and Docs. So that category archive displays all documentation posts for BBQ Pro. Likewise for other categories, for example here is the combined archive for Banhammer Pro and Tutorials. That category archive displays all tutorial posts for Banhammer […] Continue reading »

BBQ Firewall – Count Blocked Requests

BBQ Firewall

BBQ Firewall is built to be powerful, lightweight, fast and flexible. It’s code base is kept super lean, leaving extra functionality out of core while supporting new features via simple addons. For example, this tutorial shows how to use an addon to display the total number of blocked HTTP requests on the plugin settings page. This can help you get a basic idea of the plugin’s effectiveness. Continue reading »

Enable Logging for nG Firewall

This tutorial is for users of my nG Firewall, version 8G or better. It explains how to enable logging for all blocked requests. This is useful for testing, debugging, and keeping an eye on things. Takes only a few minutes to set up, and of course it’s all open source and 100% free for everyone :) Continue reading »

8G Firewall

After more than a year of beta testing, 8G Firewall is ready for use on production sites. So you can benefit from the powerful protection provided by the latest evolution of the nG Firewall (aka nG Blacklist). The 8G Firewall offers lightweight, server-level protection against a wide range of malicious requests, bad bots, automated attacks, spam, and many other types of threats and nonsense. 8G is a lightweight (only 17KB) strong firewall that provides site security and peace of mind. […] Continue reading »

About nG Firewall

The nG Firewall is a carefully crafted set of security rules for Apache and Nginx servers. nG may be applied via your site’s public root .htaccess file, or added via server configuration file. Once added, 8G provides powerful server-level protection against a wide range of malicious requests, bad bots, automated attacks, spam, and many other types of threats and nonsense. It’s a lightweight yet super strong firewall that improves site security and peace of mind. Continue reading »

Self-Hosted, Domain-Based Email Addresses FTW

I use domain-based emails for 99% of my email activity. The other 1% is comprised of assorted 3rd-party email services and temporary slash disposable addresses (like for testing purposes and one-off sign-ups, etc.). I can tell you whole-heartedly based on 20+ years working online that self-hosted email is THE WAY to go. Continue reading »

Welcome
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience. Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and more »
GA Pro: Add Google Analytics to WordPress like a pro.
Thoughts
The Office is Cheers with more irony.
More fine-grained control of macOS screen brightness: hold down Option + Shift before pressing either of the brightness keys. You get 64 increments instead of the usual 16.
REST Pro Tools featured in David McCan’s new video on locking down WordPress.
Gonna try exercise.
Launching my new plugin, REST Pro Tools 🛠️ Granular control of the WP REST API.
The algorithm is way too hypersensitive.
Working on a new pro WP plugin :)
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