smart User Slug Hider

Hide usernames in author pages URLs to enhance security

Author:Peter Raschendorfer (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:4.0
WordPress version tested:6.3.4
Plugin version:4.0.6
Added to WordPress repository:02-10-2014
Last updated:17-04-2024
Rating, %:98
Rated by:55
Plugin URI:
Total downloads:47 540
Active installs:4 000+
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The Smart User Slug Hider Plugin hides usernames in Author Pages URLs to enhance Security

Retired Plugin

Development, maintenance and support of this plugin has been retired in october 2023. You can use this plugin as long as is works for you.

There will be no more updates and I won’t answer any support questions. Thanks for your understanding.

Feel free to fork this plugin.

Usage

The plugin automatically replaces user names with 16 digits coded strings. There are no settings. Just install and forget. Deactivating the Plugin restores the default WordPress behavior.

Why use this plugin?

WordPress uses the pattern example.com/author/name for author page URLs where name represents the users login name.

This means that the login names from all your users are publicly visible which is a serious security flaw.

The Smart User Slug Hider Plugin changes all author page URLs from e.g. example.com/author/john to something like example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac.

The codes are generated automatically and its impossible to make conclusions about the user names. The WordPress default URLs will cause a 404 (not found) error.

Shortcodes

The plugin adds three shortcodes you can use in your posts:

  • [smart_user_slug] – the user slug of the post author – e.g. e9e716def73f76ac
  • [smart_user_url] – the url of the post author’s profile page – e.g. example.com/author/e9e716def73f76ac
  • [smart_user_link] – adds a link to the post author’s profile page

Theme Functions

The plugin adds two functions that can be used in theme files:

  • get_smart_user_slug( $author_id ) to get the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used
  • the_smart_user_slug( $author_id ) to display the user slug for the author – the parameter $author_id is optional, if omitted the author`s ID of the current post is used

Plugin Privacy Information

  • This plugin does not set cookies
  • This plugin does not collect or store any data
  • This plugin does not send any data to external servers
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