GF No Duplicates vs Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL)

Gravity Forms already has some built-in duplicate submission prevention techniques, including the No Duplicates setting for a field in your form, preventing the same field value from being used multiple times for the same form. Using this setting is a rock solid approach to avoid duplicate submissions, but it requires having a field in your form that you can consider as a source of unique data per submission. This add-on helps using the same idea, without requiring having a field to enable the No Duplicates setting, by dynamically adding a hidden input with a random token to the form, and checks the POST request received for this token value to prevent duplicate submissions. This will stop identical POST requests from being accepted for entry creation, like the ones that some browsers will send when the browser back or refresh buttons are clicked or when browser tabs are restored in mobile devices. Limitations If for any reason the visitor manually fills the form with the same information, and submits it again, blocking this visitor’s behavior is not within the scope of this plugin functionality. To put in another way, the add-on is intended to block automated resend of the same POST request data, it doesn’t block submissions voluntarily initiated by the visitor. If your site is still receiving repeated POST requests created before enabling the add-on, therefore not containing the token field, you would still receive duplicates for these entries. There’s no way for the add-on to be able stop duplicates for requests created before enabling the add-on. How it works: When the add-on is enabled a hidden input with a random token as value is added to each form dynamically in the front-end. When a POST request is received and handled by Gravity Forms, GF No Duplicates checks if this POST request has the token and if its value was used already in an existing entry for the form tied to the POST request. If the token parameter exists but is empty or there’s any form entry where the token value was used already, GF No Duplicates stops the submission. The form is replaced with an error message, which contains a link to the form page, suggesting the visitor to click the link to start a fresh new submission. Requirements PHP 7.0 or higher. WordPress 4.9 or higher. Gravity Forms 2.5 or higher. The page where the form is embedded must be excluded from cache (if you use any caching plugin or server cache, see note below). Usage Install and activate it as you do with any other plugin. Enjoy! Optionally, you can customize the duplicate submission message shown to users from the settings page or using a filter (see the FAQ). Note about Caching The add-on functionality relies on a random token generated dynamically, so for obvious reasons caching the page where your form is embedded would prevent the add-on from working as expected. This is not a limitation of the add-on but the expected if you’re serving a static version of your page, which is the only reason to cache a page, you shouldn’t never cache pages where you expect dynamic data. Most caching plugins provide you a way to exclude URLs from cache, this is for a reason, use it. There are some web hosting providers using cache at server level and not providing their customers with an interface to exclude URLs from cache (e.g. WP Engine, Kinsta, …), you can still ask your host support staff to add the exclusion for you. You can also use Fresh Forms for automated cache exclusion if you use any of the embedding methods and caching plugins supported (see Fresh Forms description for more details).

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!