Antispam Bee Version 2.11.3 released

Simon Kraft on 13. April 2023

Today we updated Antispam Bee with a spring update to version 2.11.3.

Compatibility with PHP 8.2 and WordPress 6.2

After the compatibility update in February, we’re moving right along and have verified that Antispam Bee is also compatible with the latest PHP and WordPress versions.

Bugfix for spam reasons

The multi-select field for “Delete comments by spam reasons” did not store values in the last version. This problem has now been fixed. However, the values of this option that were saved in the meantime are unfortunately lost.

We recommend all those using this option to take a look at the settings after the update. Other data were not affected by this problem.

Fixed broken country code link

And last but not least, we have replaced a link on the settings page.

Antispam Bee Version 2.11.2 released

Simon Kraft on 6. February 2023

While we are working in the background on the next major update of Antispam Bee, today we released version 2.11.2.

Compatibility with PHP 8.1 and WordPress 6.1

As always, we’ve been keeping a close eye on ensuring Antispam Bee is compatible with the latest WordPress version. For WP 6.1, we didn’t have to make any changes this time. Instead, we addressed a minor issue with PHP 8.1. If you had Antispam Bee installed on PHP 8.1 but didn’t receive any spam yet (congratulations!), you might have been bothered by a nasty PHP warning. This will not happen anymore from now on.

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Thank you for 5 million Downloads

Simon Kraft on 10. September 2021

Last month we achieved an important goal with Antispam Bee on WordPress.org. The plugin has now been downloaded more than five million times and is currently running on more than 700,000 websites. We want to take this opportunity to say thank you.

Thank you! ♥️

First of all, we have to thank Sergej Müller. Without his initiative, brilliant ideas, and countless invested hours, Antispam Bee would not exist today.

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Antispam Bee 2.10.0 published

Simon Kraft on 29. July 2021

Today we’ve released Antispam Bee version 2.10.0. A complete list of changes is available on GitHub.

New country detection service

To enable Antispam Bee to filter comments by country of origin, we previously relied on ip2country.info as a data-efficient and free external service. Unfortunately, due to a change of ownership and related setup changes, our API connection to ip2country has been broken for an unknown amount of time.

Since the service is closing its doors in the future anyway and moving to a paid model, we switched to another service called iplocate.io. This is limited to 1000 requests per IP. If someone needs more, then a filter can be used to specify an API key for the paid rates, or another service can be configured.

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Removal of „Allow comments only in certain language“

Sergej Müller on 4. October 2015

This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

The antispam plugin for WordPress has a handy feature to allow comments only in a certain language – incoming comments in other languages are automatically classified as spam. See the description in the manual.

To be able to execute this option/function, the unofficial interface of Google Translation (Browser) API was used until now – the interface was free of charge and could be used without restrictions. Until a few days ago.

Google has now restricted the use of this unofficial interface in that it is no longer available for automatic scripts (which is a plugin). To use Google Translate API now, the paid version must be implemented. Sooner or later this time had to come 😉

Since the function is very effective in the plugin, I would not like to remove it from the feature set. On the other hand, I don’t want to pay the costs for API usage myself (I already pay Maxmind, etc.) – the uncertainty of usage alone worries me. Also I can’t/won’t want to make the plugin (partly) chargeable, because that would mean an enormous effort for me.

Summarized

Antispam Bee users with active option “Allow comments in one language only” have to expect that the filter will not work because the speech recognition does not work anymore.

I am thinking about a solution – feedback welcome 😉

Update 11 April 2015

In order to ensure the functionality of the mentioned function, a version of the plugin has just been put online with the use of the paid version of Google Translation API – until further notice I will cover the costs (whatever they may be). Also, the API consumption is to be determined/measured with it. After a few weeks, you will know more about how much the function and the translation interface behind it were used. Accordingly you can see the resulting costs.

Update May 03, 2015

Just got an invoice from Google: $55.22 at 2,696,066 units in the period 11.04. – 30.04 (so it’s only 20 days). Since it can be assumed that the plugin update was not immediately installed by all users, one would have to expect at least $90 per month.

Update May 16, 2015

With today’s plugin update, the two functions that are cost-related for me as a plugin author, allow comments in only one language and block or allow certain countries, have been removed from the plugin’s functionality. With a heavy heart, even if it is not easy for me to reduce the Antispam Bee functionality by such strong antispam filters 🙁

Option “Consider comment time” in Antispam Bee 2.6.4

Sergej Müller on 17. November 2014

This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

Consider comment time” option in Antispam Bee

The idea of the time between writing and sending a WordPress comment has been with me for an eternity. However, I was not sure in which time the fastest (meaningful) comment can be submitted to distinguish it from a bot. Some time ago I did hundreds of tests and found out that spam bots need on average 2 seconds to fill out and send the comment form in WordPress. A human would never be able to do that, I claim.

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Antispam Bee 2.5.8 available

Sergej Müller on 14. August 2013

This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

The update brings two – in my opinion exciting – features. In detail:

1. Dashboard widget revised

Google Charts was used as a JavaScript library to display the spam history in the WordPress dashboard. For many plugin users, the Google “connection” was/is a thorn in the side (privacy concerns, etc.) – the number of real complaints increased. So I decided to swap the JS-Library. From now on, Raphaël takes over the coloring of the spam history.

2. Stop forum spam instead of Tornevall

Plugin users with the option “Consider public spam database” enabled will enjoy it. Reason for the change of the spammer database: Tornevall uses the same database as Stop Forum Spam, but the spammer data is not matched until hours or days later. And with spam, topicality plays an enormously important role, as the spam can be detected more reliably. Stop Forum Spam is definitely ahead. It is an internal plugin change, end users do not have to adjust anything.

The documentation is also adapted.

The update is now available in the WordPress-Admin. Good luck fighting the parasites 😉

Tip for Antispam Bee: reduce Spam database

Sergej Müller on 12. June 2013

This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

I recommend not to delete spam detected by Antispam Bee immediately but to keep it in the WordPress database – the plugin option “Mark detected spam, do not delete” is responsible for this. The reason: If the function “Include local spam database” is activated, Antispam Bee considers already detected spam comments.

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