Free / Premium WP Theme that has encrypted footer

CMS & WordPress
1

Hey Guys, I just wanted to ask what are your thoughts about free / premium WP theme that has encrypted footer? The purpose maybe to protect the copyright or something else.

Personally, I do my own themes. But I noticed other developers are doing this to protect their copyrights, since it’s really to alter the footer.php without encrypting it. Also, if you release your theme for free, are you sure that those copyrights remains? For premium, that depends on the owner and client.

Calling out WP gurus out there :slight_smile:

2

There’s no reason to encrypt any part of a theme or to use eval(base64_decode()).

I’d be wary of it since it could possibly contain malicious code.

3

You’re right Force Flow, but what about the copyrights of the theme? We all knew that anyone can remove it and use it in whatever they like.

Also if you mention that the theme has encrypted footer, and you assure them that there’s no virus. Do you think users are gonna be ok with that?

4

There are techniques to include a license key or API key in themes/plugins to verify a purchase. However, a determined developer would be able to bypass these.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6611611/protect-wordpress-theme-with-license-key-validation

http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/37011/how-do-i-protect-my-premium-wordpress-app-theme-from-copying

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/which-license-to-use-for-a-paid-plugin

http://www.premiumwp.com/do-users-really-want-wordpress-themes-to-be-free/

Also if you mention that the theme has encrypted footer, and you assure them that there’s no virus. Do you think users are gonna be ok with that?

I wouldn’t be. Wordpress is an open source platform, and I would be suspicious of any code that wasn’t.

5

Thanks for the reference links @Forceflow! I guess this is more suitable than the encrypted footer.

Btw, I saw some WP company that sells themes using encrypted footer. Basically giving them away for free, and asking for $$ when needed support. Not really sure how it will turn out to the users, but they seem to be working fine. Any thoughts about this?

6

I’m unfamiliar with this particular method of collecting payment for themes. It sounds like kind of a roundabout way of doing business. What’s the name of their site?

7

This one, the second pricing table.

http://newwpthemes.com/pricing/
8

Oh, I see. That makes a bit more sense now.

I looked through the code of one of the themes quick, but I didn’t see any encrypted code. Are you going by what is described on the site, or the code in an actual theme?

All I saw was a check to make sure that the footer credits were in the footer.php file.

9

I am going at what the site says, I also did a quick look at their themes and it doesn’t have any encrypted code. Now, I am wondering why did they say it has if it doesn’t?

10

It might be that they changed the way they build themes. If you ask them directly, they might tell you why they’re advertising themes as having encrypted code. Who knows.

11

I will. Thanks for the time @Forceflow! Appreciate it :slight_smile: