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Has a third party plugin broken your website before?

by WarriorForum.com Administrator
5 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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A new article on Search Engine Journal reports that Wordpress is tackling the issue head on with a plugin checker.



WordPress recently announced a proposal to take a more proactive approach toward third party plugins in order to improve security and site performance. What is being discussed is a plugin checker that will make sure that plugins are following best practices.

Third-party plugins are a major source of security vulnerabilities and website performance bottlenecks. The proposal outlines three ways to tackle a plugin checker and solicits feedback on the idea. The WordPress proposal defined the problem like this:

"While there are fewer infrastructure requirements for plugins than there are for themes, there are certainly some requirements that are worth verifying, and in any case, checking against security and performance best practices in plugins would be just as essential as it is in themes. However as of today, there is no corresponding plugin checker."
Plugin Checker

WordPress already produces a theme checker that allows theme developers to check their work for best practices and security. The same theme checker is used on the official WordPress theme repository, too. So now they want to explore doing the same thing for plugins. This is how the goal of the proposed plugin checker was defined:

"There should be a WordPress plugin checker tool that analyzes a given WordPress plugin and flags any violations of plugin development best practices with errors or warnings, with a special focus on security and performance."
The proposal lists three possible approaches. Static analysis is how themes are checked but there are limitations, such as not being able to run the code. Server-side analysis allows the plugin code to run plus a static analysis could also be accomplished. And client-side analysis loads a headless browser (essentially a bot that emulates a browser) and then tests the plugin for issues that can't necessarily be detected with a server-side solution. The document notes some challenges to this approach but also lists ways around them.

The proposal features a graph with columns for approaches A, B, and C and rows that correspond to ratings assigned to each approach for security and performance issues.

What are some of your own experiences with third party plugin problems?
#broken #party #plugin #website
  • Profile picture of the author Bruno345
    I hear a lot of questions concerning plugins. I've been using WordPress since 2020*and have never had any serious difficulties; however, I am aware that certain plugins may cause problems, and not all plugins are made equal. Most plugins are free, and users should not be concerned about them unless they have already created a problem. If you are having issues with a certain plugin, it is usually better to install plugins carefully and only load ones that are relevant to your theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author blairquane
    One of the problems is that with so many plugins available that there are so many combinations of them on websites, so its hard to know which will conflict with another or with your websites theme or custom coding. And then add in the updates of plugins! Another whole unknown.
    I've had plugins conflict with other plugins before as well as one or two which conflicted with the sites custom coding and crashed it.
    I always check my site's live and working the way it should after updating plugins.
    I think this is a good move by wordpress because the issue is a frustrating one.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasicajames0177
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author blairquane
      Yes this issue can be a nightmare if you have heaps of plugins because you sometimes don't know what one caused the issue and then need to go about the needle in the haystack to find the conflicting one!
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  • Profile picture of the author shafiulbashar
    The initiative taken by WordPress looks so good because many third-party plugins have limitations and slow down the website. While I launched my blog site, I used about ten plugins and found my website's behavior was going bad.

    Then I deactivated and tested my website. I removed more than six plugins in that process, but I don't have a delete plugins list. So from my experience, I can say that while installing a third party, we need to be more careful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thinkfast
    Wordpress just give notifications about update that this plugin has new version :click to update: but dont says that its support current wordpress version or not so i think before update we must check plugin new version changelog. Sometimes its give error due to PHP version also.

    In short i tried wordpress sometime many times ago but after some duration we found issues and so i personally not recommend wordpress if you have some custom need. For blog or CMS its good but not for custom coding.
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