BUT!

I was Googlin’ for a nice plugin to make my blog better readable for mobile users. The first URL sure looked like a good one. It’s wordpressmobile.mobi and it has a nice free WordPress plugin. Hmm.. Free as in beer?

After stumbling through the code, i noticed the following piece of it :

$campaign = ($rand <= $admobshare) ? ‘pub-3132018019261025′ : get_option(‘wordpress_mobile_plugin_google’);
$rand = ‘Sharing ‘.$admobshare.’% to plugin author’;

Alright, so it’s Google ad number is pub-31320189261025. Why didn’t he tell me about it? Maybe i should just make a good backup of my WordPress installation and install the plugin. So i did. And YES, it’s a great plugin and YES the creator did a great job. You can change the ads from the settings menu in WordPress.. And NO, you will STILL get “some” ads from the author of the plugin.. WHAAAAAAAT..

But… even scarier..

Most people just unzip the plugin and after activating the thing, they don’t even bother to configure it. It works? Then it’s ok. What you don’t know is that it defaults all the ads to it’s own so they are making money without you even noticing.

Sure looks like spyware to me. It pings back to the author. It even mails the author that a new user is using his plugin. What’s next? Is he going to make a tarball of my complete WordPress installation which he sends to all his friends at facebook?

I see this “method” poppin’ up once every few weeks and it sure doesn’t make me very happy to know that this kind of “moneymaking” is not labelled spam or spyware, where every piece of Windows junk with some “call-home plugin” is. Just my thoughts and i hope someone would let me know some GOOD arguments for not putting this on the website OR in the readme (where it should be). Hell no! It shouldn’t even be in there

Just my 2 cents and just some frustrations i need to get rid of . Maybe it will help other people get a safe WordPress installation. For now, no mobile support. I’m sorry.

edit: Oh yeah, if you want to know how to disable his own ads, mail me.