Comments Firewall vs WPControl – The Easiest Optimization Plugin for WordPress

Comments Firewall is a powerful anti-spam plugin that provides enterprise-grade firewall protection for your WordPress comments. It blocks spam before it reaches your database, eliminating the need for manual moderation while maintaining full compatibility with your theme and existing comment system. Key Features: Remove Website Field: Completely eliminates the website field from comment forms to prevent URL submissions Smart Link Blocking: Two-mode protection system (Balanced/Strict) blocks HTTP/HTTPS links with advanced pattern detection Author Name Protection: Blocks links in commenter names to prevent sophisticated spam attempts Submission Control: Granular control over comment submission methods (Form, REST API, XML-RPC) Force URL Clearing: Ensures all author URLs are cleared on submission, regardless of input method Statistics Dashboard: Real-time tracking of blocked spam comments with visual dashboard widget Multilingual Ready: Full translations in 5 languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic with RTL support) Optional Branding Badge: Customizable “Protected by Comments Firewall” badge for your site Theme Compatible: Works with any theme using standard WordPress comment hooks Lightweight & Secure: Zero performance impact with admin-only security controls How It Works: The plugin operates on multiple levels to ensure comprehensive spam protection: Form Level: Removes website fields from comment forms via WordPress hooks Validation Level: Blocks submissions containing HTTP/HTTPS patterns before they’re saved Method Level: Controls which submission methods (form, API, XML-RPC) are allowed Perfect For: Site owners experiencing backlink spam in comments Site owners wanting to avoid the hassle of manually managing spam comments Sites that want to maintain existing comments while preventing new spam Anyone looking for a plugin that blocks all comments containing a link The plugin maintains full backward compatibility and won’t disrupt your existing comment workflow or database structure.

WPControl is the ultimate way to clean up your WordPress site. With over 20 built-in optimizations, WPControl allows you to easily enable and disable WordPress Core features, letting you remove those features that you don’t use from the dashboard you and your users see. Simply put, WPControl is the ultimate plugin that you need to control your website. With our single plugin, you can remove the need to have plugins for things like: Disabling emails Disabling comments Disabling the WordPress REST API and so much more All in a single, easy to use plugin that helps boost both the performance and security of your WordPress install. WPControl is designed for simplicity first, made by the same WPBeginner team that makes your favorite WordPress tutorials. Our plugin is used by the plugin authors behind many of your favorite WordPress plugins including MonsterInsights , WPForms, AIOSEO and more. Simple, yet powerful. I love that I can easily disable all of the features of WordPress I’m not using in a single plugin. It makes new site setup a breeze! Chris Christoff At WPControl, we found that there are many unused features of WordPress that make it a hassle sometimes or we just don’t need. There are tons of plugins already out there that will disable a specific feature. But taking the time and energy to optimize all of them was too much. We made just one plugin that has the features of many so you can have a one stop shop for disabling unused features of WordPress. Unlike other methods of disabling features, WPControl allows you to disable many features with just a few clicks (no need to hire a developer). Settings Include Disable Comments – You can disable comments site wide or on specific post types such as posts, pages, and media. Disable Gutenberg – Disables the Gutenberg block editor and reverts it the Classic Editor Disable “Try Gutenberg” Nag – Removes the annoying admin notice that keeps nagging you to try Gutenberg Disable Shortlinks – The tag is auto generated by WordPress and is used to create shortlinks. If you are already using pretty permalinks, such as the PrettyLinks plugin. Then there is no need for this unnecessary tag. Disable RSD Link – RSD Links are used by blog clients and some 3rd parties that utilize XML-RPC requests. If you edit your site through your browser, then you do not need it. Most of the time, it is just unnecessary code. Remove XFN Profile Link – The XFN Profile Link is used to add semantic data to links to be used by browsers to assign relationships between profiles. Basically it tells browsers that the site contains links that use XFN Specification Disable wlwmanifest Link – The wlwmanifest link is used by Windows Live Writer. If you don’t use Windows Live Writer then disable the link as it is unnecessary code. Disable Links to Previous and Next Post – If your site is not a blog and is used as a CMS, then this feature will remove the previous and next post links in your WordPress theme. Disable XML-RPC Pingback – Removes XML-RPC method to prevent abuse of site’s pingback while you can use the rest of the XML-RPC Pingback method. Disable Gravatar – Blocks users WordPress from getting user Gravatar from their email to add privacy for the users or prevent inappropriate avatars. Disable Rest API – Disables the REST-API to prevent abuse of Rest/JSON API. Hide Login Errors – An attacker can find the authors login using a similar request as mysite.com/?author=1. Remove HTML comments – Removes HTML comments in source code to add a layer of defense from attackers trying to find the version of plugins. Remove Meta Generator – This meta tag allows attackers to see the version of WordPress, it serves no useful purpose. Disable Right Click – You can disable the ability to right click on your site, or just specific things like posts, pages, media, front page, and even have the ability to show an alert to the user that right click is disabled. Disable Admin Notices – You can disable all admin notices that appear in the admin settings page. Disable New User Emails – Stops WordPress from sending new user notification emails to admin. Disable Search – Disable the front-end search bar in WordPress. Disable Lazy Loading – Removes the lazy loading functionality that was added in WordPress 5.3. Hide Admin Toolbar – Hides the admin toolbar when the admin is on the front-end Disable Dashboard Widgets – Gives you the option to disable whichever default dashboard widgets you want. After reading this feature list, you can probably imagine why WPControl is the best disable plugin for WordPress. Give WPControl a try today! Credits This plugin is created by Zain Balkhi of the WPBeginner team. What’s Next If you like this plugin, then consider checking out our other projects: MonsterInsights – Best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress OptinMonster – Get More Email Subscribers WPForms – Best WordPress Contact Form Plugin AIOSEO – The original WordPress SEO plugin to help you rank higher in search results (trusted by over 2 million sites) SeedProd – Most popular coming soon & maintenance mode plugin for WordPress WP Mail SMTP – Improve email deliverability for your contact form with the most popular SMTP plugin for WordPress RafflePress – Best WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow traffic and social followers Smash Balloon – #1 social feeds plugin for WordPress – display social media content in WordPress without code PushEngage – Connect with visitors after they leave your website with the leading web push notification plugin TrustPulse – Add real-time social proof notifications to boost your store conversions by up to 15% This plugin would not be possible without the help and support of WPBeginner, the largest WordPress resource site. 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