New major release of Pro edition of GD Press Tools is here, and this time it brings several very important security changes including full HTAccess control panel and 5 htaccess related features. Security status panel is also updated, and plugin also contains several minor fixes and changes.
There are several HTAccess modification included in this version, and more will be added later:
- Prevent browsing of the WordPress installation folders (easier and more reliable than adding empty index files to all folders).
- Deny submitting comments for all request that have no referer set (most of the spam comments are submited this way).
- Prevent any access to files in the list (wp-config.php, .htaccess and anything else you want to add).
- Prevent website access to all requests with user agents in the list (improves website performance, since this requests will be stopped by web server).
- Limit request body size (limits upload also, and can be used to minimize effects of DDoS attacks).
Modification switches are on the top, with two blocks where you can specify files for not allowing access and list of user agents to ban. Last part of the tab shows the HTAccess file content.
Status panel now also shows recommendation for the HTAccess modifications. If you don’t have .htaccess file in the website/WordPress root folder, you need to create it yourself. If you are using permalinks in WP, most likely you will have it since it’s used to make rewriting work.
Other changes in 3.9 include network admin improvements like a widget for network dashboard, number of minor fixes and changes.
GD Press Tools Pro 4.0 will be dropping support for WordPress 2.8 and WordPress 2.9. Right now, there are a lot of ‘dirty’ parts of plugin due to old versions of WP, and supporting all that has became a real challenge. Also, adding new features with all that is very complicated and cleanup must be done. 3.9 will be branched so that it can be fixed if needed and you can expect at least one or two minor revisions.
Work on 4.0 has already started, and as the things are looking right now it will be released in the first (or second) week of January 2011. Many things will be rewritten, backup will get file system backup, there will be more security features, new debug features and more.
More about GD Press Tools Pro:
http://dv4p.com/gdpt
