Tag Archives: Testing

I Spent 20 Hours Testing 60+ Niche WordPress Themes, All Junk?

[ad_1] It downloads as a zip file, which contains three other files inside of it: You then need to scroll a little further down and upload those files in their respective areas: Again, it’s not terribly difficult at all, but it also doesn’t explain it anywhere. For someone like maybe a typical Squarespace user who’s deciding to give WordPress a shot, it could feel confusing. If WordPress Core included a standardized demo importer that was user friendly, it could streamline demo content imports for everyone. Having said that, I also realize that from a technical perspective, attempting to create a tool like this could get messy. Importing demo content involves handling various types of data, including posts, pages, media, custom post types, taxonomies, menus, and widget settings. Ensuring compatibility and proper import for all these elements could get rather complex. Even with just the difference in block themes versus classic themes and how they are built would possibly require two tools. I do think that if the installers omitted auto-installation of plugins and forced users to install and activate their plugins manually that it would make the idea more feasible. However, I’m still not dismissing how challenging the task would be. My suggestion is from the end user perspective only. Developers’ websites are not always well maintained I might catch some flack for this one, but hear me out. I’m not expecting everyone’s website to be 100% flawless with every single thing up to date. I get it. People are working on other things and most companies don’t have a dedicated website auditor who is watching every element, every day. But when you have a developer with 13 themes that they’ve built, I would hope that the demo page for each theme at least shows the theme. Having an entirely different theme on the page, with even the live preview link going to the other theme feels careless to me. I mean someone manually updated this page, right? Luckily, this issue was not as widespread as some of the others, but I did come across it here and there. So what’s the solution to all of these problems? Well, I believe that it is up to all of us who care about WordPress and the internet as a whole to do our part to make things better. Below are my suggestions on how we can do that. My parting request to theme developers and WordPress users 🙏🏻 At the risk of coming across as overly preachy here, I’m going to share my thoughts on what all of us can do, depending on what hat we’re wearing at any given moment. For developers First, to all the theme developers out there, I’d like to say that you greatly inspire me with the amazing creations you come up with. But addressing the issues I’ve raised in this article (if they apply to you) would make a world of difference in improving the WordPress ecosystem: If your theme is a commercial theme, be up front about it. Don’t offer blank shell themes by dangling demo content that’s only available behind a paywall. Many people love Elementor, but many people is not everybody. If your starter site was built with Elementor, and the user is going to need to use Elementor to build their site, then disclose it. Make it crystal clear. Do it at the top of the funnel, not in the middle or bottom after the person has already invested time installing your theme. Create a neat divide between plugins that are required for your theme to work and those that are only recommended. Don’t just bundle them all into one suggestion and prompt people to download and install them all. For minor functions, try to build them into the theme. Maintain the important parts of your websites. I understand it’s tough to keep everything up to date all the time, but having the right theme on the right page is a pretty basic ask. If you go on the starter sites page for our flagship theme, Neve, you will see that we make it easy for our users to search for both Elementor-based demo content and for demo content that we built with Gutenberg (the WordPress editor). In addition, we label any paid demo content with a “Pro” tag so you know which starter sites are available in the free version of Neve and which ones you need to upgrade to get access to. Nothing is ambiguous. This is not only transparency in action, but it’s good practice that wins people’s business. There’s an SEO agency that I came across randomly not too long ago. I don’t remember the exact context of how or why I ended up on their page, but they made an impact on me with their blunt core values. I’m talking about the first one in particular: And in a nutshell, that’s what it boils down to. The only thing I would add to the sub line is “…and our users.” Care about your users. Stop throwing together low effort niche themes just for the sake of targeting search terms. I know you wouldn’t like it if you were on the receiving end, so why would you give another person that same kind of experience? It’s bad internet karma. Cut it out. For WordPress users If you’re reading this, then it’s highly likely you use WordPress in some capacity. And as a WordPress user, you can make a difference with small (or optionally, big) gestures to help developers that actually care about their users. If you use a theme or come across one that you’re testing out and it’s both good quality and transparent, then leave a positive comment in the repository. This will help other users (just like you) who are browsing for themes that don’t suck, and it will let the developers of the theme know that you appreciate the work they put in to make a solid theme. Share it on your social

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How the WordPress Testing Process Works

[ad_1] WordPress is a massive open source tool that relies on thousands of volunteer contributors to create and test updates before they go live. Q: What are the biggest issues you face in testing WordPress releases? Anne: The biggest issues probably come down to… I always want people to test earlier than they do. We have a beta period and then a release candidate period before the final release. The beta period is usually three or four weeks before release. People don’t start paying attention until the beta period hits, which makes sense because they can get their hands on a test version, like 6.6 beta one, and there’s a process to it that makes it easier. But I am all about trying to get people to test earlier. Whenever I’m involved in releases, particularly as a test lead, you’ll see me trying to share posts ahead of time with early opportunities to test the next version of WordPress. I just want that feedback as soon as possible because there’s a rush once we get to the beta period, and there’s stuff that we need to find earlier. So, I would definitely like to get people to test as soon as possible. There’s a new GitHub group you can join called the outreach group. Anyone can join, and it’s basically for people who are interested in giving feedback on the progress, like pull requests and issues. That’s one of the things that we’re trying to get more of: your feedback. But that’s definitely a huge challenge. Also, WordPress runs 43% of the internet. How the heck do you figure out how to cover every use case, every configuration, every environment? That’s where things like getting involved with hosts is really helpful, getting them to test things, and getting agencies to test early, getting people to manually test different configurations. We really are trying to cover the widest spread possible. And that doesn’t even begin to cover plugins and themes and all that stuff. So it’s a huge task, figuring out how to get the right spread of testing. Because if you have 1,000 people test the same kind of environment, that’s actually not as helpful as getting 1,000 people that test 1,000 different environments. So that’s something I’m always thinking about. I’m always afraid we’re only getting a certain kind of testing done. So that keeps me up at night. Q: How can developers get involved in the testing process and what are the benefits of getting involved? Anne: Testing is a great way to get familiar with what’s coming in the next release. I think it’s the best way, honestly. You see where things break, you see limitations, you see what’s new. You can advocate for stuff by opening issues and saying, “I don’t like how this works,” or “this doesn’t work.” We had a case of that with this release [6.6], where some theme authors had feedback about a feature. They didn’t want something to be done automatically, and the feature was changed. Now we’re going back and forth about whether to do an extra beta cycle or not because of this fix, which is awesome. So, I would say: know that your feedback is valuable. However, when you’re in the release cycle, we can’t fix everything, we can’t change everything. If you open a request and you’re really passionate about it and want to see something enhanced, it’s not going to happen during the beta period. There’s a rhythm and a cycle. Things get stricter and stricter as the cycle goes on because we need the releases to be as reliable as possible. In terms of what folks can do, there’s a whole spread. You can use the Gutenberg plugin, which feeds a lot of enhancements into a release, on a development site and test it against your plugins or themes. There’s also a beta tester plugin, which I find a bit more manageable and a bit safer, as you can choose how risky you want to be with what you’re testing. I also want to shout out WordPress Playground as a really easy way to spin up test sites, test your plugins against stuff, and throw them away later. That is a huge tool for developers to try things out. There’s an outreach channel in the Make WordPress Slack if you want to passively consume information and not risk testing on your sites. That is a great spot to hang out in, and it also connects to that outreach handle and GitHub that I mentioned. Dianna: So get involved early in the testing process if you want to see something specific done. Q: How does the WordPress team decide what fixes and updates to work on for each new version of WordPress? Anne: It’s a combination of things. There are leadership priorities. For instance, Matt Mullenweg might come up with something that we want to do. The data liberation project, for example, doesn’t necessarily come into WordPress, but some of the stuff around portability within WordPress might come up in future releases. There’s community feedback. For example, when the last release went out, a feature was included, and there were a lot of requests for an enhancement to be included in the next release. That tends to be prioritized. The same goes for bug fixes. If there’s something hugely breaking, we’ll loop back and fix it. Oftentimes, that might happen in a minor release rather than a major release. So rather than a 6.6, maybe a 6.6.1. Then there are planned projects from contributor teams. For example, the performance team always has stuff related to the release that they’re looking at and trying to ship, as well as just monitoring the different features that are coming. There’s a core team that includes different focuses. For example, 6.6 has a feature called “robot rollback” for auto-updates, which is great for plugins. So if plugins auto-update and something doesn’t work, it will now roll back and not

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Honest Thoughts + Testing to Help You Decide

[ad_1] On the fence about using Divi AI to improve your workflows when building websites with Divi? In our hands-on Divi AI review, we’ll give you a look at how it works and, more importantly, whether it’s any good. To help answer that second question, I’ll also show you the results of some test AI prompts that I ran for text content, images, and code generation.  Divi AI is based on GPT 3.5 and Stable Diffusion, so there won’t be any real surprises there, but it will give you an idea of what it can do (and it will also show you how Divi AI is aware of the content on your site). Let’s start with a basic introduction to Divi AI and then I’ll give you a hands-on look at how it works… Divi AI Review: How Does It Help You? Divi AI can primarily improve your workflows in three key areas: Text content – you can use Divi AI to generate short-form or long-form text content from scratch, with additional tools to control the voice/style of your content. Or, you can also use it to refine existing content. Images – you can generate unique images based on simple text prompts. You can also fully control the image style, size, aspect ratio, and more. You can generate images from scratch or you can feed Divi AI existing images and have it iterate on that. Code – you can generate unique code snippets for custom CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Divi AI is already trained on Divi’s codebase, so you can be confident that the code snippets will play nice with Divi. For example, Divi AI can recognize Divi terminology in your prompts (such as you asking it to style a certain module). Why Use Divi AI Over Other AI Web Design Tools? Obviously, Elegant Themes has not built their own AI models from scratch for these: The text and code generation is based on GPT 3.5. The image generation is based on Stable Diffusion. Here are some of the details that make Divi AI unique, though: Divi AI is already trained on the Divi codebase and you can make it aware of your website’s content. For example, it can factor in the title of your site, the content of the page that you’re editing, and so on. So while it uses the same foundational starting point as many other AI tools, Divi AI is still uniquely well-suited for Divi sites. You can access Divi AI directly from the Divi Builder. This is more convenient than other AI tools, where you would need to work in a separate interface and then manually move the generated content to your site. Divi AI offers unlimited usage for one flat price. This can save you money versus other tools that have monthly limits or charge you extra depending on your usage. I’ll talk more about Divi AI pricing later on. How Divi AI Works: Hands-On Testing the AI With Prompts Now that you understand what Divi AI offers and what makes it unique, let’s take our review of Divi AI more hands-on and I’ll show you what it’s actually like to use Divi AI on a real website. I’ll start with a basic look at how you can access Divi AI.  Then, I’ll go through generating the three main types of “content” that Divi AI supports: For each type of AI generation, I’ll run through a few different example prompts to give you an idea of how effective it is. Let’s dig in… How to Access Divi AI As long as you have an active Divi AI license, you can access Divi AI directly from the Divi Builder. You’ll see a new option in the module settings when you’re editing an area that supports AI content generation. You have a few options to access the AI content. For example, if you’re editing a Text module, you’ll see a Generate Content With AI button to generate the text for that module: The same is true of other areas, such as Image modules, the code editor, and so on. I’ll show you real examples of these different areas over the next few sections. However, I think it’s easier to choose the smaller AI option that appears in individual fields. For example, if you place your cursor in the text editor, you’ll see an AI option appear next to the dynamic content option. I prefer this approach because it lets you actually enter your prompt, whereas the other button seems to take you straight to the refinement interface. Choosing this option will expand a drop-down with a list of options that are pertinent to that type of content. Below, I’ll show you specifically how it works to generate content, images, and code. Generating Text Content As I mentioned above, I think the best way to generate text content is to click the small AI icon in the text field that you want to populate. This will expand a drop-down with a bunch of options. For text content, the two most important options are at the top: Write with AI – generate text content from scratch. Improve with AI – use AI to improve the existing text in the box You’ll also get other quick actions for more specific tasks, such as lengthening or shortening the content, changing the tone, translating it, and so on. For example, if you choose the Write with AI option, it will open a popup where you can choose what type of content to generate, add your prompt, and add context (such as letting Divi AI look at the content of the page, section, or module). If you click the Guide Me option, it will expand more advanced settings for tone of voice, must-use keywords, specific content lengths, and so on. Once you click Generate Text, you’ll see the generated text. You also might get multiple results, which you can browse by clicking the arrows. You can then click the Use This

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WordPress 6.1 RC 1 Released, Ready for Testing and Translation – WP Tavern

[ad_1] We are less than three weeks out from WordPress 6.1’s official release on November 1, 2022. RC 1 was released this week, marking the hard string freeze, which means 6.1 is ready to be translated. The features landing in this release are heavy on block and site editor improvements that will bring users a greater level of design control. Many of these features have been tested in the Gutenberg plugin but will need further testing now that they are in core, including the expanded template experience, better placeholders for blocks, new modal interfaces and preferences improvements, and updated menu management. WordPress 6.1 includes 11 releases of the Gutenberg plugin (13.1 – 14.1). If you are monitoring WordPress’ core development blog, you may have seen the deluge of dev notes coming in ahead of 6.1. A few of the highlights include the following: The WordPress 6.1 Field Guide has also been published. This guide includes all the technical details of the changes coming in the release, as well as the full collection of dev notes. There are a good number of updates that fall outside of the editor with ticket references in the Field Guide, including error logging and hooks added to wp-cron.php, database updates, addition of required attribute for required inputs on multisite site registration, updates to external libraries, REST API improvements, and many more miscellaneous core updates. Plugin and theme developers are encouraged to test their extensions against RC1 and update the “Tested up to” version in the readme file. WordPress testers who are not comfortable filing a Trac ticket for bugs should report them to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. [ad_2] Source link

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Plugin Dependencies Feature Plugin Now Ready for Testing – WP Tavern

[ad_1] For more than a decade, WordPress developers have been discussing how core can support plugins that require one or more other plugins in order to work. Having a standardized way of managing plugin dependencies would be a useful and time-saving feature for developers, who currently have to roll their own solutions for this. “The situation there is a lot like the relationship between parent and child themes,” project lead Andy Fragen said in February when introducing the idea for the feature plugin. “Without their relationships to the bigger plugin, those dependent plugins can do very little. Every plugin developer is on their own to code a solution to resolve the issue. The single most common example is WooCommerce, which is a dependency for hundreds, if not thousands, of WooCommerce add-on plugins.” After nine months of discussion and development, the Plugin Dependencies feature plugin is now ready for testing. It allows plugin authors to specify any WordPress.org-hosted plugin(s) that are required for their plugins to function. A plugin that has dependencies can be identified by adding a “Requires Plugins” header to the docblock of the main plugin file. Plugin authors can specify as many dependencies as necessary in a comma-separated list of plugin slugs. How does it work? Site owners will get an admin notice if there are dependencies they need to install. The plugin card will be updated to display the Requires and Required by information on the Plugins screen. Fragen outlined how the community can test the new core support for handling plugin dependencies. You do not have to be a developer to participate in testing this new feature. It involves installing test plugin files and confirming admin notices appear and disappear at the right times. Testers who are comfortable editing plugin files can try adding dependencies, adding a dependency for non-WordPress.org plugins, and other more advanced tests. Version control is not part of this project, so developers will not be able to specify a minimum required version, for example. “Version control is out of scope for the feature as described in the original Make post referenced above,” Fragen said in response to a question on the feature plugin. “As the majority of the dependencies come from the dot org repository, the most current versions will be installed. “Specifically, WordPress should automatically prompt the user to update to the current version and may use auto-updates as well.” Testing will be open until December 1, 2022. Anyone who wants to be part of moving this long-awaited feature towards a possible inclusion in core can report issues to the WP Plugin Dependencies plugin’s repository. [ad_2] Source link

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InstaWP Launches New Service for Disposable WordPress Testing Sites – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Competition in the sandboxing products space is heating with the entrance of InstaWP, a new service for setting up disposable WordPress testing sites. Founder Vikas Singhal created the tool to provide a quick way to set up live testing sites online or to show something to a client or team. InstaWP joins the ranks of services like TasteWP and WPSandbox but with a few unique options. At setup, users can select from WordPress versions back to 4.7 and may even choose to spin up a site using the latest beta or release candidate. Like other services, InstaWP allows you to choose your PHP version. The ability to disable WP cache and browser cache is coming soon. Users can create a custom name for their sites or leave it blank for a randomly generated name. Free WordPress instances stay live for 8 hours, and users can link their accounts via email to extend it to 48 hours. InstaWP, not to be confused with InstantWP, a local WordPress installation tool, was built on an nginx + Apache server without any containers. Singhal said he found containers to be too heavy for this particular use case. He runs a WordPress plugin/theme shop along with an agency on the side, both of which could benefit from InstaWP’s quick testing sites. “I wanted to build a solution for ourselves where we can quickly launch WP instances for a variety of reasons – testing a feature of WP, testing a plugin/theme, testing in different versions of WP/PHP and last but not the least – creating an ‘instant’ test environment for the clients for them to test our plugins/themes,” he said. Singhal started InstaWP a month ago and received so much positive feedback on Reddit and from the Post Status community that he hired two dedicated developers to work on the project. Testers have commented on how fast the service spins up sites. Version 1.1.0 introduced Slack integration, which allows users to instantly set up a site by typing /wp in Slack. The release also added WordPress admin auto login for quick access without username and password. InstaWP has a public road map. Features on deck for future releases include the following: Slack and cli commands Download Files and DB Backup from the UI Direct push to FTP or cPanel nginx and nginx + Apache configurations Finer controls on PHP settings Save configurations for instant launch of pre-configured WP Integrations with hosting providers Map custom domains Multiple servers around the world (USA, Singapore, London, etc.) Singhal said he was aware of TasteWP as a competitor but plans to differentiate InstaWP based on simplicity and feature set. “My vision with InstaWP is make it a default tool for WP learners, enthusiasts, freelancers, and agencies – basically everyone,” he said. Singhal plans to monetize the tool for both end-users and plugin and theme authors. Users will have to upgrade to gain access to increased limits, custom domains, FTP access, and the ability to reserve a site. WordPress product authors can upgrade to provide 1-click demos to their clients and prospective customers. Singhal said so far more than 500 instances have been created and teams from Yoast and some agencies are already using the tool. Several prominent WordPress businesses have requested agency pricing that would allow their users to test their plugins via a 1-click preconfigured install. The service is still under active development and Singhal plans to iron out pricing in the near future. Testers who have suggestions for InstaWP can log them on the tool’s idea board for future consideration. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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A Developer-Centric Call for Testing Theme JSON Configuration – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Round #8 of the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach Program began yesterday. Instead of the user-centric call for testing features from the UI, program lead Anne McCarthy asks that volunteers dive into code. The new adventure is all about testing theme.json files. The twist is likely to limit the pool of usual volunteers. However, it could open it up to an audience that may have been sitting on the sideline for the previous tests: theme developers. Before jumping headfirst theme JSON files, we should probably all get on the same page. I have been calling theme.json the tipping point between the old WordPress and the new WordPress. When version 5.0 of the core platform launched in late 2018, it was a revolutionary step forward, but not on the surface. A new editor is just a new editor. Some will love it; others will hate it. And, it was more often clunky than not. For the most part, WordPress was still WordPress. The core software was due for an upending. Newer technologies were not only democratizing publishing in their own ways, but they were also bringing that same concept to design. The introduction of blocks was merely foundational. The new editor was an imperfect tool, often feeling like the proverbial round peg being shoved into a square hole. The only way to live out the early vision of the Gutenberg project was to continue bridging the gap between what the user sees in the admin and what gets output on the front end. That is what the theme.json file is all about. It is a translator that allows users, themes, and WordPress to all speak the same language. What does this mean exactly? From a user’s viewpoint, they see all sorts of controls for changing their blocks. Color, font size, alignment, and other options are tools that allow them to customize their content. Customizing a profile card for my cat using block options. There are severe limitations with what is possible in the current system. Theme authors can register a handful of options. Outside of that, the theme and block systems can feel like they are pitted against each other for control. That is where the theme.json file comes in. It allows themes and WordPress to get on the same page, creating a standardized system that improves the user experience. This file that lives a theme’s root folder hands over the power to configure dozens of presets (e.g., color and font options), custom CSS properties, and default styles for blocks and HTML elements. It also gives themers the power to enable or disable specific features. For example, developers can turn off the ability for users to set a custom font size but provide access to their perfect scale of choices that fit into the design’s vertical rhythm. However, it will move beyond the simple configuration of blocks in the content editor. When the global styles system launches alongside the site editor in the future, users will customize many of the presets and overwrite the default block styles. Because everyone is speaking that same language, fewer conflicts arise. As designer Tammie Lister pointed out in her piece for Ephermeral Themes, Theme.json inspires, themes have been stuck. The software, the community, has put too much responsibility on the shoulders of themers over the years. They have had to innovate and build the systems that should have been coming from WordPress. Not only did the core platform need to be turned on its head, but the design system deserved an overhaul. “I am very aware that saying ‘first major theme process to core’ in years is quite a statement,” wrote Lister. “Theme.json to me is that though. I don’t say this ignoring iterations and improvements, WordPress is a project flowing with the energy of those. However, themes were on life support stuck in a land when the rest of front end development was moving on. It wasn’t for some trying to change that, mostly when they did the time wasn’t right and as it didn’t come from core it was always a harder change.” It is time for a new front-end design era. But, first, we must test. Testing Theme JSON Real-world theme.json file. The more I journeyed into this call for testing, the more I realized it did not feel right for me. Over the past couple of months, I have already been in the thick of working from the theme.json file. I know most of the little quirks and see the gaps. The tricks for working with it feel second nature to me. I have performed all of the beginner and intermediate steps dozens upon dozens of times. I have already filed tickets for any issues I have run into. Or, someone else has already beat me to the punch. Those stages of this testing round need fresh eyes. The best feedback will be from theme authors who will be viewing the problems through a different pair of lenses. If you are in this group, there is no time like the present to test and provide feedback. The advanced stage calls for recreating a classic theme using theme.json. It is best to stick with something simple. Otherwise, you could be looking at a weeks-long experiment. McCarthy recommends Twenty Twenty or Storefront. I have already been performing this song and dance too. My test project was an old theme that I gutted and turned into a block theme. There is one overarching issue that I keep coming back to. It is that theme authors must work from a JSON file at all. I understand the “why” behind using JSON. It is a universal format that we can pass around from JavaScript to PHP. Third-party APIs can understand it. However, I am currently sitting on top of 900+ lines of code in my theme.json. I have heard from a couple of other theme authors who have been doing deep work with similar numbers. I expect it to only grow. “Number of lines”

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WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 Ready For Testing

[ad_1] WPLift is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. WPLift / WordPress News / 2021 / Weekly WordPress News: WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 Ready For Testing Last Updated on June 18th, 2021 Published on June 18th, 2021 Tags: Automattic, WordPress 5.8 [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress 5.8 Beta 1 Is Ready for Testing

[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, the first beta for WordPress 5.8 is officially out. While the software is still in development, you can start testing the new version. The current target for the final release is July 20. Beyond that, the WordPress.org blog page is getting an improved design. We also have lots of other articles and tutorials for you. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link

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Chrome Canary Adds Flag for Disabling FLoC Testing – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Google’s controversial Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) experiment now has a feature flag within Chrome Canary (the nightly build of Chrome for developers) that allows users to opt out. In January 2020, Google announced its plans to discontinue support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years. The first bits and pieces of the company’s Privacy Sandbox initiative started landing in Chrome in December 2020 with an initial flag to disable it. FLoC, Google’s proposed replacement for third-party cookies, began testing as a developer origin trial in Chrome at the end of March 2021. In Canary, users can navigate to chrome://flags/#privacy-sandbox-settings-2 to find the Privacy Sandbox Settings 2 flag. Relaunch Canary to save the changes. This will unlock the box that allows users to either reset their FLoC group or opt out of FLoC entirely. The new setting is available under chrome://settings/privacySandbox: If the setting remains enabled, which is the default, Chrome will group users into cohorts based on recent browsing activity and then advertisers select ads for the entire group. Browsing activity for the individual is “kept private on your device,” but Chrome certainly has access that information by way of mediating the cohorts. Google notes that the trial is currently only active in some regions. Users can also opt out of Privacy Sandbox trials on the same page. Current trials include the following: Advertisers and publishers can use FLoC Advertisers and publishers can study the effectiveness of ads in a way that does not track you across sites Google has not specified how users would opt out of FLoC if the experiment is successful and moves forward. Organizations and site owners who are currently on the fence about it may go either way depending on how easy it is for Chrome users to opt out themselves. “Instead of comparing FLoC to its predecessor, third party cookies, I feel it’s actually more like the Facebook Pixel – mostly in the sense that it’s controlled by a single surveillance capital company,” WordPress core contributor Roy Tanck commented on the trac ticket for the discussion. “FLoC may not be quite as nefarious, but I feel it should be something website owners consciously opt into. “WordPress has always advocated for a free and open web, and FLoC appears to actively harm that goal. I think WordPress should take a stand against this, and do it now.” A few others have chimed in on the ticket recently as other open source projects have started blocking FLoC by default. Plugin developer David McCan’s comment referenced analytics data published in early May suggesting that US users choose to opt out of tracking 96 percent of the time following the changes in iOS 14.5. “There is no doubt that coming down on the side of user privacy vs user tracking is the right thing to do,” McCan said. “Which headline would we rather see? ‘By default millions of WordPress websites are allowing users to be tracked’ or ‘WordPress takes steps to block user tracking making millions of websites around the world safe to visit?’ “We already have a policy that opt-in by default tracking’ is not allowed in plugins hosted by WordPress. This is because we recognize the responsibility and benefit of protecting user privacy.” During a live marketing event Google hosted at the end of last week, Jerry Dischler, vice president and general manager of Ads, addressed the recent privacy concerns surrounding FLoC. “We’ll be using these [Privacy Sandbox] APIs for our own ads and measurement products just like everyone else, and we will not build any backdoors for ourselves,” Dischler said. Dischler also reaffirmed Google’s commitment to moving away from third-party cookies. “Third-party cookies and other proposed identifiers that some in the industry are advocating for do not meet the rising expectations consumers have when it comes to privacy,” he said. “They will not stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions; they simply cannot be relied on in the long term.” Google bears the burden of reassuring advertisers that effective advertising is still possible as the company moves beyond tracking cookies. It is aiming to future-proof advertisers’ measurement of campaign performance with what it claims are “privacy-safe solutions.” The company is pushing hard for advertisers to adopt these new techniques, promising more actionable first-party conversion data. Although consumer expectations have changed, FLoC may not be the answer to the need for a privacy-preserving advertising model. So far it looks like Google will have an uphill battle to gain more broad support from browsers, advertisers, and consumers. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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