[ad_1] Company A sells its plugin. Company B picks it up and moves forward with an overhauled version that looks and feels much different than the original. Users are outraged by the changes. It seems to be a repeating theme in 2021, almost as a rule rather than an exception. Last month, Termly announced its acquisition of the GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner plugin. The plugin was a simple tool for adding and styling a consent banner for the front end. It is now a SaaS (Software as a Service) product that requires a Termly account to operate. According to the team’s blog post, such changes were necessary. “Termly’s products, including the cookie consent management platform, are designed to cover the EU GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, UK GDPR, and the CCPA. These laws require more than just a cookie consent banner to be compliant. Termly can help you build a privacy policy, create a Data Subject Access Request form, and comply with other privacy law requirements.” In the past couple of weeks, users have taken to the WordPress.org review system, handing out 21 of the plugin’s 29 total one-star ratings. The project has over 200,000 users, so more should be expected if the general consensus is that this was a poor move by the company. One of the complaints from users is the commercialization of the plugin. In the past, it was completely free to use. While there is still a free tier, users are limited to a mere 100 monthly unique visitors on a single domain. After hitting that limit, the banner will stop collecting consent records. The next level up costs $15 per month if paid annually. New pricing options for the Termly service. As Pattaya Web Services pointed out via Twitter, “GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner for #Wordpress has been purchased by #Termly and will now cost most website owners $180 per year.” Termly must get a return on its investment. The company has developers to pay, and they have families to feed. But, I suspect the average user will not warm up to the so-limiting-that-it-is-free-in-name-only introduction level. Having to pay for features that have been free for years will not sit well with many. Of course, there is always the option of using the old version, but Termly has no plans of maintaining it or ensuring that it meets compliance. The only alternative for small site owners who cannot afford to pay is to opt for another solution. “I guess GDPR Cookie Consent banner, now operated by @Termly_io didn’t learn anything from [the] fiasco with WP User Avatar plugin reported by @wptavern earlier this year,” wrote user Gennady Kurushin on Twitter. I believe they did. There are differences, and Termly’s handling of this showed a willingness to be transparent. And, I cannot stress this enough: the new plugin is not an entirely different one unrelated to its core purpose. It was overhauled and turned into a SaaS product. At the end of the day, it is still a cookie consent management plugin — just different and costs a lot more for most users. Unlike Dark Mode and ProfilePress, Termly did not make the changes in the dead of night. At least the company was upfront about everything. The team included an announcement in a point release two weeks before sending out the overhauled version. It disabled automatic updates so that users would not accidentally upgrade without being aware of what was coming. It even published a public blog post detailing what was happening. Prior notice of upcoming changes in 3.0 and disabled auto-updates. If anything, Termly took just about all the necessary steps it could have taken to prepare its user base. If a “right” way existed for a complete and utter makeover of a plugin, the company did as much. That level of honesty is a bit more than we have seen in the past. The changes may still leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many users, but Termly should at least get a few points for making them in the light of day. The result may be the same: fundamental changes in how the plugin operates, but users had a chance to ditch it or continue using the old version before anything went into effect. For some users, it may not be much, but that’s worth something. I won’t be breaking out my pitchfork today, but I do not use the plugin. As more and more users upgrade to 3.0+ and realize they are essentially on the line for $180 per year, the reviews could get ugly. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingTag Archives: Free
WP Engine Makes Local Pro Free for All Users – WP Tavern
[ad_1] WP Engine announced today that Local Pro, the commercial upgrade for its local WordPress development product, is now free for all users. Beginning with version 6.0, all features that formerly required a paid subscription are now available with a free Local account. These include Live Links Pro, Instant Reload, Link Checker, and MagicSync. “We believe Local Pro features benefit a broader WordPress developer community and we want to deliver the full value of Local to more developers than ever,” WP Engine Senior Vice President Seth Halpern said. “We want to empower the freedom to create on WordPress by making all Local features available for free.” WP Engine’s recently published research estimates the WordPress economy at $596.7B. The company may be in a better position to gain customers for its hosting products if they make Local completely free, as the tool was designed to seamlessly connect with WP Engine and Flywheel’s hosting. It is currently used by more than 300,000 developers. Over the years Local has gained popularity due to how easy it makes setting up WordPress development and testing environments. Version 6.0 also introduces Local’s new Cloud Backups add-on, which will allow users to backup to Google Drive or Dropbox. Cloud backups can be restored from the Tools tab. The 6.0 release post details a few features that have been moved to new locations in the interface: MagicSync is now a global preference, and the default push/pull experience can be toggled in the Preferences menu. Live Links Pro, now Live Links, will be accessible for all users by connecting your Local account. Link Checker and Instant Reload have been moved to the Local Add-ons Library. Xdebug Add-ons have moved from the Utilities tab into the Tools tab within Local. Existing Local Pro subscribers will have access to priority support until September 1, 2021. After that time, dedicated ticket support will be discontinued in favor of directing users to the community forums and help docs. WP Engine is offering customers full or prorated refunds, which will be sent out before July 31, 2021. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue reading30+ Best WordPress Sport Themes in 2021 (Free & Paid)
[ad_1] Many sports enthusiasts find it hard to select a theme for their WordPress website. There are dozens of free and premium options. Each theme looks better than the previous one. How do you compare the numerous WordPress sport themes and select the best one for your website? That’s where this article comes into play. We have picked the top twenty-five WordPress sport themes after reviewing over one hundred themes on the market. You can use these themes both for individual as well as team sports websites, and you can also customize them for any team you support or play for. That’s not all. All these themes have the color scheme and the design to level up the excitement of your fellow sports enthusiasts. They also have special sections for news, fixtures, results, and schedules and give your website visitors the option to contact you. Read on to know more. OceanWP OceanWP is an excellent multipurpose theme that works well with a sports blog or website. Its powerful customization options make it one of the best free WordPress themes in the market. Pros Fully Responsive eCommerce ready Support experience is really good RTL support Cons The free version has too many ads Price Get OceanWP Sportify Sportify is one of the smoothest WordPress themes around. This premium theme helps you get up to speed with its tutorials, demo websites and more. It offers 13 custom posts, 9 page templates, cross-browser optimization and hundreds of Google fonts. Sportify has also thrown in the user-friendly Slider Revolution plugin in its package. You can use it to make visually appealing and smooth slideshows to showcase your website’s content in an eye-catching way. It is also WooCommerce compatible to allow you to sell products on your website. Pros 13 custom posts 9 page templates Social media support Cons Dedicated to gym and fitness Price Get Sportify Neve Neve Fitness is a must-have if you’re thinking of launching a fitness and gym blog. This WordPress theme boosts an uber-responsive design and is compatible with Elementor and Gutenberg. It offers multiple demos to help you get up to speed with its features and is WooCommerce ready as well. What’s more, its AMP ready feature means you won’t miss out on mobile viewers. You can also count on this theme to receive reliable updates, with each new update shoring up your website’s security as well as bringing in new features. And the best thing about this theme? It’s a cinch to install. Article Continues Below Pros Translation & RTL-ready Optimized well for mobile devices Smooth onboarding process Cons Limited color customization options in the free version Price Get Neve Kallyas Kallyas has everything you might want in your ideal WordPress sports theme. It comes search engine optimized, offers lightning-fast loading speeds and provides free lifetime updates. You also get video tutorials for the most seamless website development process ever. It also offers a full-screen slider, stunning classes pages, parallax effect, and a booking form. You can use its services page to push your offerings and introduce your professional trainers to website visitors. This will make them aware of what to expect when they hire your services. Pros Stunning classes pages Full-screen slider Free lifetime updates Cons Isn’t compatible with legacy versions of internet explorer Price $69 (for regular version); $2100 (for extended version) Get Kallyas KickOff KickOff is explicitly designed for football clubs, leagues, players and teams. It provides full updates on the players, upcoming fixtures, league standings and more. Your website visitors can also see team lineups, player stats and full detail of matches. All in all, it has everything for a football enthusiast. This football-specific theme also offers unlimited color schemes, support for PHP 7.0 and compatibility with the Elementor plugin. It also ensures all your web graphics look immaculate, thanks to its full retina compatibility. And it comes with all PSDs files to let you modify its design per your heart’s content. Pros Offers video background Integrated with BuddyPress Cross-browser compatible Cons Price $59 (for regular version); $2950 (for extended version) Get Kickoff Oxigeno WordPress sports templates can be divided into two categories. The first type of themes are those dedicated to a particular player, club or league. The second type, to which Oxigeno belongs, offers visitors extensive information such as fixtures lists, results, highlights and more. Oxigeno sets itself apart from most sports themes that focus on popular sports such as football, basketball, and baseball by covering swimming. However, that doesn’t mean you can create a sport for another website. The bundled Bold Builder plugin lets you create a site for any of your favorite sport. Pros Huge collection of Google Fonts Includes Bold Builder plugin in the package Easy to customize Cons Feels less polished than most other themes Price $69 (for regular version); $2950 (for extended version) Get Oxigeno Article Continues Below Alchemists Most sports fans would testify that the idea that modern sport is driven by statistics is true. You have player stats, team points, league scores, standings and much more. Finding a theme that would let you showcase all this data without looking like an excel spreadsheet is tough. Alchemists likes dealing with tough challenges. Every element of this theme’s design is colorful and bold, and gives you access to multitudes of options, such as game results, fixtures lists, team standings, and embedded streams. Regardless of your favorite sport, it’s a theme worth checking out. Pros Integrated with WooCommerce plugin Gives you the option to create e-sports website Has a bold and colorful design Cons Price $69 (for regular version); $2600 (for extended version) Get Alchemist Redy Redy is vibrant, bold and dynamic. It’s a no-nonsense WordPress sports theme that’s ideal for fitness coaches, athletes or anyone promoting a healthy lifestyle. This theme offers one-click installation and lets you create swipe effect for your pictures with the bundled Revolution Slider plugin. This theme’s compatibility with various useful plugins is its unique selling point. That’s because it lets you
Continue reading10 Top Free and Premium CDNs for WordPress
[ad_1] Speed is a practical necessity for all websites. While there are lots of ways you can do this, and Content Delivery Network (CDN) is ideal for getting your site to load fast regardless of where the end user is located. Though, as this list of free and premium CDNs will show, there’s overwhelming choice. Though, you don’t have to bog yourself down with decision paralysis. There are a few top solutions to suit a variety of needs. What’s more, because WordPress is popular, integrating a CDN is a piece of cake. This means you can concentrate on what a solution will offer, rather than how you’ll implement it. As such, this article will look at some of the popular free and premium CDNs for WordPress. Before this, let’s fill in the blanks when it comes to how a CDN can help you. What a Content Delivery Network (CDN) Is In a nutshell, a CDN is a network of servers across the globe. The goal is to take your site, distribute it across those servers, and call on it when a local user accesses your site. For example, if you’re a site owner in the US, you’re often going to use a server located in the country. Users close in a relative sense to that server won’t see any issues. Though, for an end user in Australia, the time it takes to get your site from one server to the other will cause lag. In fact, this is a big aspect in testing your site speed with tools such as Pingdom or GTmetrix: A CDN chooses the most relevant server (read: the closest) for the end user, and serves that. It’s the same site for all practical purposes, but offers a dramatic difference to your visitors. As such, they’re vital for a high-performing website that runs fast almost anywhere on the planet. The Perks of Both Free and Premium CDNs for Your Site and Its Users The general benefit of using free or premium CDNs is speed. Though, if you drill down further, there are specific reasons why a fast site is better than a slow one: In short, search engines prefer fast sites. Google considers speed to be an important factor, and uses it in part to determine a site’s PageRank calculation. A site that loads quickly improves the user’s experience, which is crucial for optimizing conversion rates. After all, even a two-second loading time can hammer your bounce rate. There’s also a bandwidth saving for your host too. Because a CDN uses its own servers, your host won’t be responsible for allocating resources. As such, you can better use your host’s resources, and farm out others to your CDN. 10 Top Free and Premium CDNs for WordPress Over the next few sections, we’ll discuss ten of the best free and premium CDNs on the market. We’ll talk about the general features of each solution, along with their pros and cons. Of course, we’ll also tell you the cost of each one. Here’s a summary of our inclusions: StackPath. An enterprise-level solution that comes with similar-sized pricing. Amazon CloudFront. It integrates with AWS, so will be suitable if you use that service. CDN77. This is the only CDN that can work from space! It’s another service that best suits huge networks. Cloudflare. The perennial choice of users with low budgets, Cloudflare is great regardless of whether you’re on the free or premium tier. CDN.net. The pricing is better than other large CDNs, but offers less in the way of features and functionality. jsDelivr. This servers your JavaScript dependencies from a network of servers. Site Accelerator. Automattic’s own solution is an image and file CDN that’s ideal if you’re a Jetpack user. KeyCDN. Good pricing and solid features means KeyCDN is a top-tier solution for all users. Swarmify. A video CDN that works great alongside other full-featured CDNs. BelugaCDN. This budget CDN is an outlier pic if you’re looking for a long-term and cheap CDN. While you might have heard of some solutions here, others could be new. As such, we encourage you to jump around the post and check out whatever CDNs appeal to you. Let’s begin! 1. StackPath First on our list of free and premium CDNs is a solution you may not know in its current guise. StackPath is a rebranded and enhanced MaxCDN – a product we’ve covered on the blog before. Regardless of its name, it’s an industry-standard CDN, trusted by millions of users. StackPath offers high-performance and better security, along with a bunch of other features and specifications: A direct connection to the StackPath network – great for high-traffic applications. The ability to serve Secure Sockets Layers (SSL) certificates from StackPath’s servers, rather than from your ‘origins’. You’re able to set custom rules for your setup, to make sure StackPath works for your needs. StackPath also offers in-depth support across a variety of channels. In the past, we’ve shown how MaxCDN and WordPress integrates, and it will be a similar case for StackPath too. Though, it’s worth noting that we couldn’t find any pricing on StackPath’s website. This often indicates that you’ll need a substantial budget to afford its service. As such, this could be a deal-breaker for you. Try StackPath 2. Amazon CloudFront Amazon (of course) are an integral part of online shopping for millions of users. What’s more, there are various ‘wings’ of the brand, and you can find services such as audiobooks, and cloud computing too. Amazon’s CloudFront is their take on a CDN that’s worth investigating. CloudFront is one part of the whole Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering. As such, your AWS resource allocation includes millions of ‘function invocations’ for the platform. As you’d expect, you’re in good hands with CloudFront. Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Slack, and more all use the CDN to deliver content across the globe. This is down to a robust, enterprise-level set of features and functionality: There’s deep integration with the whole AWS network of
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