iQ Block Country vs PDF Embedder – PDF Viewer & Embed PDF Files for WordPress

iQ Block Country is a plugin that allows you to limit access to your website content. You can either allow or disallow visitors from defined countries to (parts of) your content. For instance if you have content that should be restricted to a limited set of countries you can do so. If you want to block rogue countries that cause issues like for instance hack attempts, spamming of your comments etc you can block them as well. Do you want secure your WordPress Admin backend site to only your country? Entirely possible! You can even block all countries and only allow your ip address. And even if you block a country you can still allow certain visitors by putting their ip address on the allow list just like you can allow a country but put ip addresses on the block list from that country. You can show blocked visitors a message which you can style by using CSS or you can redirect them to a page within your WordPress site. Or you can redirect the visitors to an external website. You can (dis)allow visitors to blog articles, blog categories or pages or all content. Stop visitors from doing harmful things on your WordPress site or limit the countries that can access your blog. Add an additional layer of security to your WordPress site. This plugin uses the GeoLite database from Maxmind. It has a 99.5% accuracy so that is pretty good for a free database. If you need higher accuracy you can buy a license from MaxMind directly. If you cannot or do not want to download the GeoIP database from Maxmind you can use the GeoIP API website available on https://webence.net/ If you want to use the GeoLite database from Maxmind you will have to download the GeoIP database from MaxMind directly and upload it to your site. The WordPress license does not allow this plugin to download the MaxMind Geo database for you. Please be aware that although this plugin can help you greatly with reducing the number of ‘bad’ visitors on your website it is not fool proof and those who really want to visit your site may find a away. This is not a security issue but a simple fact of today. Nobody can guarantee you 100% security as it is a constant battle between the good guys and the bad guys. If you are sure your webhosting or yourself does not use any form of caching or proxying we recommend setting the “Override IP information” on the Home tab to REMOTE_ADDR Do you need help with this plugin? Please email [email protected]. GDPR Information This plugin stores data about your visitors in your local WordPress database. The number of days this data is stores can be configured on the settings page. You can also disable logging any data. Data which is stored of blocked visitors: IP Address Date and time of the visit URL that was requested Country of the IP address If the block happened on your backend or your frontend Data which is stored on non blocked visitors: Nothing If you allow tracking (yeah if you do!) you share some information with us. This is only the IP address of a blocked request on your backend. No other information is send and only the IP address is logged on our systems to gather how many times that IP address have attempted to login to a backend. We do not log which site was visited or which URL just only the IP address So we cannot lead an ip address back to a specific website or user. If an IP address is not blocked again within a month we will remove the IP address from the list. If you use the GeoIP API service you send the IP address of your visitor to one of our servers. This IP Address is however in no way stored at our servers and only used to convert it to a country id. Using this plugin with a caching plugin Please note that many of the caching plugins are not compatible with this plugin. The nature of caching is that a dynamically build web page is cached into a static page. If a visitor is blocked this plugin sends header data where it supplies info that the page should not be cached. Many plugins however disregard this info and cache the page or the redirect. Resulting in valid visitors receiving a message that they are blocked. This is not a malfunction of this plugin. Disclaimer: No guarantees are made but after some light testing the following caching plugins seem to work: Comet Cache, WP Super Cache Plugins that do NOT work: W3 Total Cache, Hyper cache, WPRocket Warning: Caching & Geo Blocking do not work well together. In the best case scenario countries or IP’s you want to block get served a page from cache and when visiting non cached pages they get blocked. This is due to the fact when pages are served from cache the iQ Block Country plugin does not get started and can’t do it’s job. If the caching plugin however ignores the caching headers you risk the chance that the block message gets cached and everyone gets to see they are blocked even the countries that you did not block. If you’re fine with blocked countries getting served the page from cache then you’re fine using the iQ Block Country plugin. If you’re not you should disable either the cache or the Geo Blocking. Or search for another solution outside WordPress (for instance by using the Varnish software) where you can GeoBlock at a caching level. GeoIP API For your convenience we offer a GeoIP API service. This API is not mandatory to use as you can always use the free MaxMind GeoIP Database. If you do not want or can’t go through the hassle of updating your MaxMind GeoIP database we provide an API service to convert the IP address of your visitors to a country. If you decide to purchase an GeoIP API Key via https://webence.net you’ll get an eMail with your API Key (License Key). Once you enter this key in your iQ Block Country settings your license key will be validated at our API service and a the nearest API server to you will be chosen. To do this your website will contact all API servers once to request an empty file. Once you use the API service the IP address of your visitors and your API key are send to one of the API servers and converted to a country. The plugin checks if the visitor should be blocked based on that country or not. What is logged on our end? * Upon validation of your license key your request will be logged in our webserver logs. (This will be the IP address of your webserver). * Upon checking an IP address of your visitor this IP address is only used to convert it to the country it belongs to and is not logged. We have no way to link a visitors IP address to your website. What is logged is your API Key and the Website URL making the request. If you decide to purchase the GeoIP API key your chosen payment account will be charged by on a time basis. This subscription will not renew itself unless you subscribed to our service prior to September 2024. Privacy policy regarding this service specific can be found here: https://webence.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Privacy-Policy-Webence-API.pdf MaxMind Database Usage This plugin uses the Free version of the MaxMind GeoIP2 Country Database. You can also use the paid version but will have to make sure it is uploaded to the same location with the filename of Free database. MaxMind Terms of Use: https://www.maxmind.com/en/terms-of-use MaxMind Privacy Policy: https://www.maxmind.com/en/privacy-policy

Upload PDF files and embed them directly into your site’s posts and pages, as simply as adding images. Each document displays right where you place it, at its natural size or a width you choose, and the responsive viewer adapts automatically whenever the browser dimensions change. Out of the box, WordPress turns an uploaded PDF into a bare download link: visitors click it and leave your page, or the file opens in a viewer you don’t control. PDF Embedder keeps them reading on the page and keeps you in control of how your document looks. PDF Embedder displays PDF documents on more than 300,000 websites. It differs from other PDF plugins in how the document becomes part of the page: rendered inline, sized to your layout, served entirely from your own site, and previewed live while you edit. There is no Google Docs Viewer or other third-party service involved, and the viewer loads its files only on pages that contain a PDF, so the rest of your site stays fast. In the Block Editor, the PDF Embedder block shows a live preview of your document while you edit. Pick a PDF file from the block sidebar, change a setting, and the preview updates to match what visitors will see on the front end. What can you embed? Any PDF file, whether it lives in your Media Library or in another folder on your site. Embed unlimited PDFs across posts, pages, and custom post types. Site owners use PDF Embedder to display: Restaurant menus and price lists Ebooks, guides, whitepapers, and research reports Product catalogs, brochures, and lookbooks Newsletters, magazines, and annual reports User manuals and technical documentation Worksheets, lesson plans, and other course materials Sheet music, church bulletins, and event programs Real estate flyers, floor plans, and legal documents Resumes and portfolios Visitors read the document right on the page: no new tab, no forced download, and no Adobe Acrobat or third-party account required. How it works Upload a PDF to your Media Library, or copy the URL of a PDF hosted anywhere else. Add the PDF Embedder block and pick the file from the block sidebar. In the Classic Editor or a page builder, use the shortcode instead. Publish. Visitors turn pages with the Next and Previous buttons and zoom in when part of a page is too small for their screen. The shortcode works anywhere shortcodes do: [pdf-embedder url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Plan-Summary.pdf"] Site-wide defaults, such as width and toolbar position, live under Settings -> PDF Embedder, and any single embed can override them with its own block settings or shortcode attributes. See the Plugin Instructions for sizing options and other ways to customize. Works with membership, e-commerce, and course plugins PDF Embedder renders through a regular shortcode and block, so the viewer works anywhere your post content does, including pages that other plugins restrict or sell access to. Sell access to premium PDF content, such as ebooks, reports, or research papers, by embedding it on pages protected with MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content Pro, or WooCommerce Memberships. Deliver handouts and workbooks inside courses built with LearnDash, LifterLMS, or Tutor LMS. Show a free sample chapter on a WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads product page, and deliver the full ebook after purchase. Embed several PDFs on one page to build a simple PDF document library for your team, school, or members. On the Pro plan of PDF Embedder Premium, you can pair restricted pages with the secure viewer and watermarks, so members read documents online while the original file stays hard to download. What users say Site owners tend to stay with PDF Embedder for years. Here is what they say: “One client wanted to display PDF newsletters in a way that was clean, user-friendly, and easy to scroll through. That’s when I discovered WP PDF Embedder. It does the job beautifully, making PDFs look professional and effortless to navigate. Since then, it has become my go-to recommendation for any client who needs to showcase PDF content on their website.” — Vera Schafer “I have been using PDF Embedder for well over ten years. It’s just a great app. Can’t recommend it enough.” — Rich Calo “I have been using this plugin (both the free version and the pro version) for a number of years on various clients’ websites. It is easy to set up, does what it needs to and just works the way a plugin should. I highly recommend it.” — DebsWebs “I’ve been using PDF Embedder Secure for 3 years now, and it helped me sharing my paid content securely, preventing malicious people from buying my PDF files and then sharing them illegally everywhere. PDF files are chopped, digested, watermarked, unaccessible even if someone finds the direct link.” — Daniele Benedettelli Go further with PDF Embedder Premium In the free plugin, there is no download button and links inside the PDF are not clickable – the viewer is intentionally simple to fulfill the “read online” goal. PDF Embedder Premium adds those and more: Download button in the toolbar, so visitors can save your document for later. Working hyperlinks, both within the document and out to any other page. Continuous scroll – readers scroll through pages naturally instead of clicking through them. Mobile-friendly full screen mode – when the document renders narrower than a width you set, as it does on most phones, it displays as a thumbnail with a large “View in Full Screen” button. The document opens with the full focus of the mobile browser, and readers swipe between pages instead of clicking buttons. Jump to page – type a page number in the toolbar to go straight there. Full-text search – visitors search the text of your PDF documents from the toolbar and jump straight to matching pages. View and download tracking – see which documents people actually read. Elementor widget with the same options as the block and a live PDF preview in the Elementor editor. Secure viewing (Pro plan) – the PDF is encrypted during transmission, so it is difficult for a casual user to save or print the original file, and your document is far less likely to end up outside your site. Watermarks (Pro plan) – overlay any text, including the logged-in user’s name or email address, to discourage sharing of screenshots. Automatic PDF thumbnails (Elite plan) – every PDF in your Media Library gets an image thumbnail to use as a featured image, a clickable download link, or the file’s icon in the Media Library. Every plan comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee: if Premium is not a fit, you get a refund, no questions asked. Compare Premium plans on wp-pdf.com Better than Google Drive embeds, Scribd, Issuu, and other PDF tools The usual ways to embed a PDF without a plugin – an iframe snippet, the Google Drive or Google Docs viewer, or a service like Scribd, Issuu, FlippingBook, FlipHTML5, or DocDroid – hand your document to servers you don’t control. It loads at their speed, carries their branding, and can disappear or change terms at any time. You may have also tried other WordPress PDF plugins, such as EmbedPress, Embed Any Document, PDF Poster, Wonder PDF Embed, PDF.js Viewer, or flipbook plugins like DearFlip and 3D FlipBook. Most rely on iframes or third-party viewers to display the document. PDF Embedder keeps everything on your own site: your files, your server, your data. That is better for page speed, better for privacy, and more reliable for your visitors. With thanks to the Mozilla team for developing the underlying pdf.js technology used by this PDF viewer plugin. Branding guidelines PDF Embedder is a product of wp-pdf.com. When writing about this WordPress PDF plugin, please use the correct branding: PDF Embedder (correct) PDFEmbedder (incorrect) PDF Embeder (incorrect) PDF Imbedder (incorrect)