Issue #147 Loop WP

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Simon Harper
March 05, 2025

Hi, friend. šŸ‘‹

Welcome to Issue #147 of Loop WP!

Last week, we looked at WP Crontrol, one of my must-use plugins as part of my stack.

This week, itā€™s all about Gravatar.

Letā€™s go! šŸ‘‡

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Remember that Gravatar ā€œmaybeā€ got hacked?

Itā€™s been a long time since I talked about Gravatar, thatā€™s probably the case for most of us.

šŸ˜² I last discussed Gravatar almost 3.5 years ago, when Automattic claimed it was not subject to a huge data breach.

Automatticā€™s response angered many at the time, and I have no idea if they have made any changes to their security or API since the incident.

šŸ¤” However, it looks like there was a related breach only a few months ago with Earth 2.

ā€œ In October 2024, 421k unique email addresses from the virtual earth game Earth 2 were derived from embedded Gravatar images.

Appearing alongside player usernames, the root cause was related to how Gravatar presents links to avatars as MD5 hashes within consuming services, a feature Earth 2 advised has now been disabled on their platform.ā€

Have I Been Pwned

šŸ’” At the time of writing, Automatticā€™s most recent update (January 27th, 2025) to its Gravatar privacy policy maintains Gravatar was never compromised.

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Gravatar Privacy Concerns?

Gravatar is a service I use personally, but it has made me think twice about whether I should use it.

šŸ’” When building websites for clients, I don't use Gravatar when memberships are involved or Author Profiles are required.

Using Gravatar can cause GDPR issues, so using local images is much better.

Local Solutions

āš ļø Automattic has recently released an ā€œEnhanced Gravatarā€ plugin, which Iā€™ve not had a chance to test, but apparently:

ā€œJust by enabling the plugin, the plugin ensures that no referrer information is sent to Gravatar. The opt-in proxy service also keeps IP addresses from being exposed or logged.ā€

Hello, world. Remember us?

šŸšØ This post grabbed my attention and inspired this weekā€™s newsletter.

As part of their big plans for 2025, Gravatar released the use of custom domains, which I reluctantly bought from WordPress.com (Automattic)

(I asked but received no reply about whether another domain provider could be used.)

šŸ¤© I have to admit that from a design and feature perspective, Gravatar has never looked or functioned better.

Custom domains were on the start, and there are a slew of new features already available/on the way:

šŸ§  Iā€™ve not had a chance to take all these new features for a spin, but I will be checking them out and writing a follow-up to this weekā€™s newsletter at a later date.

A Final Question(s)

āš”ļø There are a lot of websites that use Gravatar, although growth seems to be trending down (which could be why Gravatar has recently made big changes to its website and offering).

Given everything weā€™ve discussed, Iā€™m left with a lot of thoughts and some questions. šŸ‘‡

I guess we have to ask ourselves, friend, if Gravatar is safe to use and whether there are privacy issues we should be concerned about when using a service for such convenience.

Classifieds
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Sponsorship Opportunities

šŸšØ The Google Doc contains all the details if youā€™re interested in sponsoring the Loop WP Newsletter.

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Before You Go

šŸ¤” ā€œWhat if we left things a little bit better than when we found them?ā€ I ask that question and more as a guest of Nathan Wrigley on the latest WP Builds podcast.

"Unity in WordPress: navigating fractures and embracing positivity with Simon Harper" - WP Builds WordPress podcast #411

Simon Harper discusses the WordPress community, its challenges, division, and the need for positivity to navigate ongoing disputes and future growth.

wpbuilds.com/2025/02/27/411-unity-in-wordpress-navigating-fractures-and-embracing-positivity-with-simon-harper

See you next week! šŸ˜€

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

  • Back from the Dead - Oxygen 6, rewritten from the ground up, is here. (Oxygen)

  • WordPress Communities - Mark International Womenā€™s Day 2025 with Women-Led Events. (The Repository)

  • Plugin Check - How to Improve Custom WordPress Plugins with Plugin Check. (Eric Karkovack)

  • BYOK - STOP paying for AI Subscriptions and use API keys! (Brendan Oā€™Connell)

  • Within WP - Mastering Conversion Tracking in WordPress with Derek Ashauer. (Remkus de Vries)

  • Mastering WordPress - Core Framework & Bricks Builder 2025 (WP Tuts)

  • 4+ Million Downloads - Stop Wasting Hours on Image Details: Modula AI Does It For You. (Christian Rabier)

  • WooCommerce 9.7 - Smarter shipping displays and faster performance. (WooCommerce)

  • 70% off! - How to Quickly Create a High-Performance Website. (Rodolfo Melogli)

  • Very Cool! - Customize WordPress embeds to match your theme. (WordPress Dev Blog)

  • Gender Equality - Who Leads WordPress Businesses? The Data Confirms Itā€™s (Still) Not Women. (The Repository)

  • Freelancing - Managing Technical Debt as a WordPress Freelancer. (The WP Minute)

  • Tutorial - Mastering BEM Naming for CSS Beginners. (WP Tuts)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

šŸ‘‹ Until next time,

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