Kama SpamBlock vs La Sentinelle antispam

Kama Spamblock blocks simple automated comment spam. It is invisible to normal visitors and does not use captchas. The plugin protects the standard WordPress comment endpoint, wp-comments-post.php. It adds a small check to the comment form. Direct requests that skip the form are blocked. This is a basic check, not proof that a person wrote the comment. Bots that load the page and run JavaScript can pass it. Kama Spamblock does not replace a full anti-spam service. It also checks pings and trackbacks for a link back to your site. Even if you are using an external comment system like Disqus, Kama Spamblock can add lightweight protection. Automated requests can be posted directly to the ‘wp-comments-post.php’ file, where the plugin can block basic bots. Simple and effective protection Kama Spamblock combines several small checks that are inexpensive for the site and invisible during normal commenting: The protective field name and its unique code rotate together every four hours. Ten recent pairs remain valid for pages served from full-page cache. Each marker is tied to the specific WordPress post, so a marker copied from another comment form is rejected. The form must remain open for at least three seconds before it can be accepted. Protective fields are added only after interaction with the comment submit button. If a valid comment is blocked, a JavaScript-only retry form preserves the entered data. The retry challenge changes its HTML structure to make basic scraping less reliable. Pingbacks and trackbacks must return a successful HTTP response, non-binary content, and a real backlink. These checks deliberately remain lightweight. A capable bot that loads the page, runs JavaScript, and reproduces normal browser behaviour can still pass them. Using Kama Spamblock with other anti-spam plugins Kama Spamblock can work with a full anti-spam plugin or service. It blocks simple direct spam requests first. The other tool can then check the comments that remain. For example, it can analyse comment text, reputation, or behaviour. The plugins complement each other. For this combination to work as intended: The other plugin should use the standard WordPress comment flow, or check comments after Kama Spamblock allows them. The site must show the standard comment form and allow the plugin’s JavaScript to run. Set the correct ID for the form’s submit button in the plugin settings. Test the setup if another plugin replaces the comment form, uses AJAX, or sends comments to its own endpoint. Kama Spamblock may need extra integration, or it may not check those comments.

Feel safe knowing that your website is safe from spam. La Sentinelle will guard your WordPress website against spam in a simple and effective way. It has antispam filters for comment forms and registration forms and can be extended to support plugins. The default settings should catch most spambots, and there is a settingspage to set it up according to your wishes. Current features include: 3 antispam features; Honeypot, Nonce, Form Timeout. These 3 spamfilters depend on JavaScript on the frontend. 1 antispam feature; Stop Forum Spam. Settingspage to set things up according to your wishes. Transparent to the visitor, no nagging with Captcha’s or other annoying things. By default no use of third-party services and no tracking of visitors. Lightweight and simple code. Logging for WordPress Comments and which spamfilter marked it as spam. Logging for Custom forms and which spamfilter marked it as spam. Statistics for every form how many spam submissions were blocked. WordPress forms that are protected: WordPress Comments form. WordPress Login form. WordPress Register form. WordPress Lost Password form. Form Plugins that are protected: Caldera Forms. Clean Login (Login form). Contact Form 7. Easy Digital Downloads (Login form, Register form). Everest Forms. Formidable Form Builder. Forminator. Newsletter Optin Box plugin (noptin) (standalone forms). Ultimate Member (Login form, Register form and Lost Password form). WooCommerce (Login form, Lost Password form). WPForms Lite. WP Job Manager plugin (submit job form when registering is enabled). Support If you have a problem or a feature request, please post it on the plugin’s support forum on wordpress.org. I will do my best to respond as soon as possible. If you send me an email, I will not reply. Please use the support forum. Translations Translations can be added very easily through GlotPress. You can start translating strings there for your locale. They need to be validated though, so if there’s no validator yet, and you want to apply for being validator (PTE), please post it on the support forum. I will make a request on make/polyglots to have you added as validator for this plugin/locale. How to choose an antispam plugin When you look through the WordPress Plugin Repository you will see more than a hundred antispam plugins. Which one is the best one? Short answer, there is no “best one”. No spamfilter and no method for spamfiltering is perfect. Slightly longer answer, you could try about twenty and choose the one that fits your needs best. But there is also a really long answer. There are different methods that can be used against spam, and every method has its drawbacks. In my opinion, having a low number of false positives is more important than perfectly marking all spam, you don’t want to miss out on important people or information. Nagging the user in some way has a similar effect, the user might not even want to bother with that and just walk away. Third party services: Services like Akismet, OOPSpam, Stop Forum Spam and also reCAPTCHA offer third party services to check for spam. This can be very effective, but you are giving user submitted data away to these third parties and are also giving your users up for tracking them. Captcha’s, reCAPTCHA and Quizz Questions: You are annoying your users and probably sending some of them away. This especially counts for reCAPTCHA for visitors who have third party cookies disabled. Blacklists: Often running behind the facts. That goes for the way of getting users off that list, and also in getting users on that list. Referer check: check if the Referer header is set correctly. You can never trust it is set correctly. Modern browsers are limiting the use of Referers, though for now that is mostly for third-party domains. JavaScript methods: Spammers often (always?) don’t use JavaScript, they just post the form with spammy data. Drawback for this method is that statistics say that about 1 percent of users has JavaScript disabled. Also, some websites have broken JavaScript, which might make the spamfilter break as well. Activation email for registering users. Users only get activated after clicking a link in an activation email. You still have all the non-activated users in your site however. You could have a bright idea about combining several methods, but then you get the drawbacks of all the methods you use. Another complication of choosing a good plugin is that most antispam plugins don’t tell you what methods they use. The documentation doesn’t tell you, and looking at the source code just leaves you confused at the chaos that it often is. My main motivation for writing this plugin is to offer a plugin that does spamfiltering with JavaScript methods in a simple and effective way. The claimed 1 percent of users that has JavaScript disabled will also be tech-savy enough to enable it again for your website. Compatibility This plugin is compatible with ClassicPress. Contributions This plugin is also available in Codeberg.