Do You Trust WordPress Themes With Coded Footers?

ChrisBa

14 years ago

Personally I wouldn't use it, but that's just me

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mywebwork

14 years ago

Hi Dennis

Usually a designer encodes the themes footer so that they can leave their link intact. It's not very likely a virus, as far as I'm aware you can't actually encode a virus with PHP.

If you do a "view source" on your site with the theme you can see what is actually in the footer. Chances are its just a link to the designers site or perhaps an affiliate link. But I'm sure that you'll find there is nothing there that would prevent you from safely using it.

Bill

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petelta

14 years ago

I use these wordpress themes all the time. Make sure to check the limitations they set for using the theme first though. Rarely, they will ask to keep the links in the footer.

You can easily find someone to rewrite your footer to work with the theme. I know very limited PHP and I am able to change my footers to work.

I haven't come across a theme with a virus or scam. It's usually just their links.

Travis

Originally Posted by dnsg

I just found a free WordPress Theme that I would really like to use for one of my websites.

I downloaded the zip file and opened it up. I looked at the footer.php file and it's coded in dbase64 or something.

Would you trust it?

I always leave the footer links to whomever created the theme, but I don't like not knowing what is in the footer file. I'm sure there is a chance it contains some type of malware, virus or something else bad.

Any thoughts on the subject?

Thanks,

Dennis Graves

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AceOfShirts

14 years ago

I created a blank footer file and uploaded it and the theme still works.

I'll look into it more. I don't mind giving the creator the credit they deserve.

Thanks,

Dennis

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markjacey

14 years ago

There are two ways:
1. You can easly decode it. Just check in google

or

2. Just copy decoded version from your site.

Here is how:

step 1: mark coded section just by putting letters before and after it
(for example: qqq "here goes coded part" www)

step 2: load site with footer you like to decode

step 3: right click on it and choice "show source"
and search for decoded part. Your letters marks will help you

Have fun

[ 1 ] Thanks

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Jamian

14 years ago

Originally Posted by dnsg

I just found a free WordPress Theme that I would really like to use for one of my websites.

I downloaded the zip file and opened it up. I looked at the footer.php file and it's coded in dbase64 or something.

Would you trust it?

I always leave the footer links to whomever created the theme, but I don't like not knowing what is in the footer file. I'm sure there is a chance it contains some type of malware, virus or something else bad.

Any thoughts on the subject?

Thanks,

Dennis Graves

Hello,

As a creator of a wordpress theme, the reason why they put their links on the footer, is because they want other users to know who created that wordpress theme and to use their theme. So you don't need to worry about that. hope it helps.

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markjacey

14 years ago

Give credits to creators and in the same time know what you have in footer

Thanks

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Tim Franklin

14 years ago

You know, I sort of dont, I mean, you never know what might be in a theme, unless you look at the code, like in a recent plugin I examined, it (the plugin) secretly, was pushing traffic to some cookie stuffing sites, that was just not cool,

And everyone was talking about how great this cool plugin was and they were secretly promoting spam sites and none of them knew it,

That, is where you have to be careful, I look over every script I install, to make sure it is not doing something bad that I may not be aware of.

Good post, that is why I do not like encrypted scripts, because you do not know what those scripts are doing behind your back.

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AndyBeard

14 years ago

Jamian it is great being trusting of all footers but here are some thoughts

1. External links = juice - do you really need to leak juice on every page of your site just to say thanks?
2. If the link was just for traffic, the designers would use nofollow or javascript for the link (though that doesn't necessarily block everything)
3. Some coded links are really fun - the theme creator can modify the links on the fly from their central location, inject various types of iframes, lock you out of your blog or create a backdoor

Of course it is also possible to set things up so a blog owner only sees clean code

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Anonymous Affiliate

14 years ago

I have no problem with links on footers as long as they're subtle enough. Give credits where due.

Thanks

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Do You Trust WordPress Themes With Coded Footers?

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