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WordPress Akismet Alternative

I am not running any campaign against Akismet or Automatic. I love wordpress and the total Automatic team without any doubt. However, the Akismet plugin is not effective as before. So i was seeking for some alternatives to akisment for protecting my blog against the number of spam comments i receive everyday. Ofcourse, i am not alone in the blogosphere. I have millions of bloggers as my company. I can see that when you nod your head while reading this 🙂

When i was trying to give some ideas about getting more comments to your blog“, one of my genuine blog reader have left a master piece suggestion 🙂  as a comment, which really made me to think and implement it in one of my blog. And so far its good and passed 2 days testing. i will surely come up with a complete report for the entire month once its done.

Spammers basically use some Bots and Auto Comment software or script to fill our Comment Box. This can be avoided using this Anti-Captcha Plugin. Let see the way the anti captcha plugin works to say good bye to spam comments.

Step 1: Browse for “Anti-Captcha” plugin from Dashboard and install it.

Step 2: Disable Akismet (optional)

(or)

Download Anti-Captcha Manually

No more steps to follow 🙂 . The Anti Captcha plugin is actually an invisible Javascript code that will only let users who actually browse the web using browser agent. If they use any Bots then it strictly restricts them from commenting by displaying a captcha.

The aim of this plugin is to prevent automated attacks (by bots) on the following WordPress actions:

  • Posting comments
  • Authenticating
  • Registering for a new account
  • Requesting a lost password

When a comment is posted without a valid Anti-Captcha token, it shall be instantly marked as spam. This way, you can always manually approve this comment in hindsight if it appeared to be sincere.

I really appreciate the user feedback to know whether the same works for others or any negatives in play. Thanks to Slava for the great suggestion. If you also have any other best plugin or solution to fight the spam comments in wordpress blog then please do add them in comment. Thanks a lot for your patience.

About the Author: Robin C

Security Consultant, Engineer, Technology Enthusiast and Blogger.

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21 Comments

  1. Good plugin Robin, but a majority of bots now are made using embedded browsers, so they show up as a real browser with a real user agent and they support Javascript. I’ve found that using Typepad Antispam (a WP plugin) which uses the same methods as Akismet works well. Another method people are using with some success is the Growmap Antispam Plugin (GASP), which uses Javascript to fool spider-type of bots, but with the script creates a checkbox that must be checked for the comment to go through. Using both methods eliminates almost all automated spam.

    Hope this helps you 🙂

    1. Ha.. perfect suggestion @Aaron. I am so keen on jumping into a research to fight against these spam comments not just for wordpress, almost for any CMS systems as well.

      Let me try your ideas in one of my blog that currently test riding the Anti Captcha plugin.

      Cheers.

    2. Aaron,

      “majority of bots now are made using embedded browsers”

      well, I have to disagree with you by showing my Spam folder on one of the blogs I run that uses Anti-Captcha. Thousands of Spam comments in Spam, not a single one automated comment in “Real”. One false _negative_ in Spam (probably a real visitor, but turned off JavaScript).

      The “majority” still uses bots that fail Anti-Captcha test.

  2. Hello Robin,

    I am using Anti captcha in one of my blog but I think it is not doing a good job because every time I am getting lots of spam mails but the plugin not able to mark it a spam.Now I am doing manual comment moderation the drawback is that it taking too much time.

    Regards |Madav

    1. Oh.. that must be bit painful. Try other recommendation given by fellow bloggers below. I hope any one can save your big time in moderating this annoying spam comments.

      _Robin

  3. Looks like an interesting plugin, I do not use Akismet anymore because it can not reduce the spam from automated attacks or by bots. So I use a GASP and so far successfully reduce spam comments especially from spam bots

  4. What about services like death by captcha? they often used with softwares such as scrapebox to avoid captcha.

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