When it comes to security plugins for WordPress, we don’t think to highly of most of them. But we have continued to be surprised how low things can go with them. Take for example the WP Antivirus Site Protection (by SiteGuarding.com) plugin, which on it’s description page on the Plugin Directory it states near the top:
This plugin will be especially useful for everybody who downloads WP themes and plugins from torrents and websites with free stuff instead of purchase the original copies from the developers. You will be shocked, how many free gifts they have inside
Their touting its use for those that pirate WordPress themes and plugins is kind of incredible on its own (note the lack of past tense in terms of downloading that software or lack of suggestion not to do that). But more incredible is the fact that at the same time the plugin is really just a connection for a mostly paid service, so they think you should pay them, but are okay with people not paying the developers of software.
What makes that dichotomy more striking is the comments from the developer on some of the negative reviews of the plugins.
One review reads:
If your website contains a file larger than 25MB, the plugin will abort and ask you to upgrade rather than just skipping it and warning you. The plugin is just a leadgen ploy. Uninstalled. Further more, of all the wordpress hacks I’ve ever seen, files affected are NEVER large or over a few kb.
That seems like reasonable complaint, which gets this response from the developer:
free version has limits. if you are not ready to pay for the security enjoy and live with the viruses.
As part of their response to another review the developer wrote in part:
If you installed it again. It means plugin is good, you just dont want to pay for good plugins and services and want everything for free.
It is also worth noting that there are a lot of rather fake looking reviews for the plugin.