New WordPress Plugin for Spam: Defensio

by Ben Yoskovitz

It’s been just about a month or so since I switched from Akismet to Defensio.

The Defensio team are good friends of mine - Carl Mercier (uber-developer in charge of things over there) and Mat Balez (as good an instigator as any). They asked me to alpha test their WordPress plugin and I was happy to oblige.

Defensio is now in closed-beta. You can contact them for an invite by visiting the Defensio website.

In January, I wrote a blog post about ways Akismet could be improved. I know Carl and Mat didn’t read that post and decide to build a better spam plugin, but they’ve started to implement some of those ideas in a worthwhile way. They’ve sworn me to some amount of secrecy, so you’ll just have to sign-up for the beta yourself.

In the meantime, the results have been good. It’s not that Akismet does a terrible job, but there doesn’t seem to be much new work being done on it. The Defensio team are committed to making improvements to their existing WordPress plugin, and seeing if they can do a better job of beating spam. Even some of the Administrative interface changes alone make Defensio worthwhile.

Blog spam is a tough nut to crack. Spammers seem intent on making our lives miserable; and it’s frustrating when spam sneaks through, or worse, we find false positives caught in our spam filters. It’s a cat and mouse game that we’ll be playing with spammers for many, many years to come. Defensio may be able to help.

July 9th, 2007
More in Blogging

10 Responses to “New WordPress Plugin for Spam: Defensio”

#1 Mat

Thanks Ben — we’re definitely banging away hard at the spam problem, and like you say it’s a tough nut to crack.

We’re looking forward to rolling out more beta invites soon.

And a big public Thank You, for being one of our first, and most patient, testers.

Cheers,

Mat
Defensio.com

#2 Carolyn Manning

Thanks for the tip, Ben. I just popped over to sign up for the next Beta test. Since so many people were complaining about Askimet, I never bothered with it. The spam didn’t bother me at first (actually, it gave me a perverse feeling that I’d arrived; Thoughts & Philosophies was big enough to get spammed :) ). Now Thoughts is big enough to warrant a good filter.

#3 Tris Hussey

Psst … hey buddy … I got lots of WP sites … psst even moved my own to WP … ;)

#4 Ben Yoskovitz

Tris - The Defensio people tell me that more beta test accounts will be going out soon. They know you’re at the top of the list!

#5 links for 2007-07-11

[...] New WordPress Plugin for Spam: Defensio : Instigator Blog Ben Yoskovitz’s recommendation of a WordPress plugin that fights spam (tags: WordPress) [...]

#6 New Anti-Spam plugin for Wordpress at J4vk Blog

[...] people say that it’s a new upgraded Akismet, and Karma: better then both. Well, I suggest to give it a try, and then we’ll see how good it is. Bookmark [...]

#7 Blog News Watch » Blog Archive » Weekly Roundup: Week Ending July 13, 2007

[...] I’d Rather Be Writing: Tom talks about “The Paradox of White Space” … Instigator Blog: The skinny on a possible contender to the Akismet throne - Defensio, for WordPress … [...]

#8 Instigator Blog » Blog Archive » Two Montreal Startups Launch: Defensio and CakeMail

[...] first is Defensio. I’ve mentioned them before since I was an early alpha tester. According to Defensio, they’ve filtered out over 100,000 [...]

#9 Will OpenID Support Help Defensio Squash Blog Spam Better? - GigaOM

[...] does a terrible job, but there doesn’t seem to be much new work being done on it,” said Ben Yoskovitz on his Instigatorblog. “Even some of the Administrative interface changes alone make Defensio [...]

#10 Alopro

Business opportunity for self motivated people that can work from home
marketing a range of Aloe Vera
Products. Earn unlimited funds by developing your own sales distributors in
any World markets.

Please visit us.

http://www.mlm-mall.com/

Leave a Reply

Please use your real name or a handle that's not driven by trying to gain SEO / Google Juice from my blog. If you put in a "name" designed for SEO purposes, I will edit it. I support the DoFollow movement, but this is also a community, and comments are meant to inspire discussion, not gain link love. Thank you!

Co-Founder of Standout Jobs.
Entrepreneur and Opportunity Seeker!
About Me · Email Me