Ad Invalid Click Protector (AICP) vs Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL)

Ad Invalid Click Protector a.k.a. AICP plugin will help you to save your Google Ad account from unusual invalid click activities and click bombings. As per the Google Ad terms, Google doesn’t take any responsibility towards these invalid click activities or click bombings and always point the finger towards the Ad publisher, giving him/her all the blames. Now it is time to end this problem, once and for all. Please Note: This plugin uses 3rd party systems ip-api.com to get the location details for the server IP. Please check their Privacy Policy and Terms. By default the plugin uses the free version of IP-API service but if you have purchased a premium version then you can enter your API key inside the plugin settings page. Important Note About Touch Screen Support: This plugin doesn’t work on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, because this hardware uses a touchscreen instead of a mouse as click input. This design makes the boundary monitoring trick ineffective. Important Note: From v1.1.0 this plugin will only work with AdSense ad code or any ad code that shows iframe based ads. Normal affiliate ad codes will be tracked anymore. If you want to track affiliate ad codes like , please use v1.0.6 of this plugin. v1.1.0+ code will not work that way. To know why I had to do this, check the FAQ section. Important Note: This plugin uses the free API version of IP-API.com which allows 150 req/min. If you have a high traffic website, this 150 requests per minute will not be enough for you and you may see 503 Error on your site due to free API restrictions. If you have a high traffic website which may generate more than 150 requests per minute, I will recommend you to grab the PRO Version of IP-API and enter your Pro API key in the General Settings page of this plugin. Video Demonstration About the Plugin Usage Before start using the plugin, I will highly recommend you to take a look at this video demonstration where I’ve explained everything about this plugin. For plugin support please post your your feedback and support questions to the Plugin’s Support Forum. It took 300+ hours to code, design, test and to do several bugfix to make this plugin a reality. If you enjoy this plugin and understand the huge effort I put into this, please consider donating some amount (no matter how small) for keeping alive the development of this plugin. Thank you again for using my plugin. Also if you love using this plugin, I would really appreciate if you take 2 minutes out of your busy schedule to share your review about this plugin. Features of the plugin include: Set maximum ad click limit Block any visitor if he exceeds the mentioned click limit Ban some countries from seeing the ads on your site Ability to see the list of banned user details from the WordPress admin section Ability to delete any banned IP one by one or in bulk approach Ability to search any IP within the banned IP list Admin dashboard widget to show the total number of banned users Now this plugin is also hosted in Github. But the Github repo will be used for the development of the plugin. So, from now on you can also report the bugs in Github Issue Tracker if you want. Some FAQs How to use this plugin with your site? I know there are many WordPress plugin where you basically paste your AdSense code and it shows your ad at various position of your website. But unfortunately it is not humanly possible for me to check every single plugin of such out there or contact each plugin developer. Here I’m showing you how to incorporate the Ad Invalid Click Protector (AICP) plugin with your website’s ad code, so that both other plugin developers and normal users who use custom codes to show up their ads can take advantage of this. To use the Ad Invalid Click Protector plugin with your ad code you basically have to do 2 simple things. Put a if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { /* return your ad code here */ } block before returning your ad code to the front end Wrap your ad code within a simple div tag like this ...your ad code goes here... Personally I create various WordPress shortcodes for various ad units that I use on my personal website. It is extremely easy to create shortcodes for your ad units while taking the advantage of Ad Invalid Click Protector Plugin. Let me show you how to create a WordPress shortcode very easily. To create a shortcode the first thing you need to do is, go to the functions.php file of your theme or your child theme and at the end of your file put any of the following code. If you are using a PHP version (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); '; return $adCode; } else { // Anything within this part will be shown to your banned visitors or to the blocked country visitors return ' You have been blocked from seeing ads. '; } } If you are using PHP version >= 5.3, you don’t need to give a function name, instead you can take advantage of of anonymous function like this way: add_shortcode( 'your_shortcode_name', function() { if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { // This part will show ads to your non-banned visitors $adCode = ' (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); '; return $adCode; } else { // Anything within this part will be shown to your banned visitors or to the blocked country visitors return ' You have been blocked from seeing ads. '; } } ); Please Note: if you want, you can completely ignore the else {} block above in case you don’t wanna show anything special to the blocked visitors. How can I know what PHP version I am using? You can install the WP Server Stats plugin in your website which will show you many important information about your hosting environment including what PHP version you are currently using. Can this plugin be used with other ad medias? No It is not. This plugin will only work with Ad ads or any ad media that shows iframe based ads. Recently Google has tweaked there ad code which makes merely impossible to support both iframe based ads like Ad and non-iframe based ads, like affiliate ads. In case of affiliate ads, there is generally no click bombing issue, that is why from v1.1.0, AICP will only support iframe based ads and not general affiliate ads. Sorry guys! In case you want to use AICP just for affiliate ads, I will recommend you to download v1.0.6 of the plugin from the old archive. Will it help me from stop clicking on my own ads? No, you are not supposed to click on your own ads. If you want you can use adblock in your browser to save yourself from accidental clicking on your own ads. Languages Ad Invalid Click Protector plugin is 100% translation ready. Right now it only has the English translation in it but over time with the community help I hope this plugin will have many language in it’s language directory. Support the Plugin If you like this plugin please don’t forget to write a review and if possible please Donate some amount to keep the plugin and it’s development alive.

Easily improve site security with WordPress Hardening, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Login Protection, Vulnerability Detection and SSL certificate. Really simple, Effective and Performant WordPress Security Really Simple Security is the most lightweight and easy-to-use security plugin for WordPress. It secures your WordPress website with SSL certificate generation, including proper 301 https redirection and SSL enforcement, scanning for possible vulnerabilities, Login Protection and implementing essential WordPress hardening features. We believe that security should have the absolute minimum effect on website performance, user experience and maintainability. Therefore, Really Simple Security is: Lightweight: Every security feature is developed with a modular approach and with performance in mind. Disabled features won’t load any redundant code. Easy-to-use: 1-minute configuration with short onboarding setup. Security Features Easy SSL Migration Migrates your website to HTTPS and enforces SSL in just one click. 301 redirect via PHP or .htaccess Secure cookies Let’s Encrypt: Install an SSL Certificate if your hosting provider supports manual installation. Server Health Check: Your server configuration is every bit as important for your website security. WordPress Hardening Tweak your configuration and keep WordPress fortified and safe by tackling potential weaknesses. Prevent code execution in the uploads folder Prevent login feedback and disable user enumeration Disable XML-RPC Disable directory browsing Username restrictions (block ‘admin’ and public names) and much more.. Vulnerability Detection Get notified when plugins, themes or WP core contain vulnerabilities and need appropriate action. Login Protection Allow or enforce Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for specific user roles. Users receive a two-factor code via Email. Improve Security with Really Simple Security Pro Protect your site with all essential security features by upgrading to Really Simple Security Pro. Advanced SSL enforcement Mixed Content Scan & Fixer. Detect files that are requested over HTTP and fix them to HTTPS, both Front- and Back-end. Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security and configure your site for the HSTS Preload list. Firewall Really Simple Security Pro includes a performant and efficient WordPress firewall, to stop bots, crawlers and bad actors with IP and username blocks. 404 blocking – Blocks crawlers as they trigger unusual numbers of 404 errors. Region blocking – Only allow/block access to your site from specific regions. Automated and customisable Firewall rules. IP blocklist and allowlist. Security Headers Security headers protect your site visitors against the risk of clickjacking, cross-site-forgery attacks, stealing login credentials and malware. Independent of your Server Configuration, works on Apache, LiteSpeed, NGINX, etc. Protect your website visitors with X-XSS Protection, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, a Referrer Policy and CORS headers. Automatically generate your WordPress-tailored Content Security Policy. Vulnerability Measures When a vulnerability is detected in a plugin, theme or WordPress core you will get notified accordingly. With Vulnerability Measures, you can configure simple but effective measures to make sure that a critical vulnerability won’t remain unattended. Force update: An update process will be tried multiple times until it can be assumed development of a theme or plugin is abandoned. You will be notified during these steps. Quarantine: When a plugin or theme can’t be updated to solve a vulnerability, Really Simple Security can quarantine the plugin. Advanced Site Hardening Choose a custom login URL Automated File Permissions check and fixer Rename and randomize your database prefix Change the debug.log file location to a non-public folder Disable application passwords Control admin creation Disable HTTP methods, reducing HTTP requests Login Protection Secure your website’s login process and user accounts with powerful security measures. Two-Step verification (Email login) 2FA (two factor authentication) with TOTP Passwordless login with passkey login Enforce strong passwords and frequent password change Limit Login Attempts With Limit Login Attempts you can configure a threshold to temporarily or permanently block IP addresses or (non-existing) usernames. You can also throw a CAPTCHA after a failed login (hCaptcha or Google reCaptcha) Access Control Restrict access to your site for specific regions. Add specific IP addresses or IP ranges to the Blocklist or Allowlist. Useful Links Documentation Security Definitions Translate Really Simple Security Issues & pull requests Feature requests Love Really Simple Security? If you want to support the continuing development of this plugin, please consider buying Really Simple Security Pro, which includes some excellent security features and premium support. About Really Simple Plugins Our mission is to make complex WordPress requirements really easy. Really Simple Security is developed by Really Simple Plugins. For generating SSL certificates, Really Simple Security uses the le acme2 PHP Let’s Encrypt client library, thanks to ‘fbett’ for providing it. Vulnerability Detection uses WP Vulnerability, an open-source initiative by Javier Casares. Want to join as a collaborator? We’re on GitHub as well!