Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from…

We’ve got a couple of great in-depth plugins to cover for you with a plugin for tossing bad bots down a blackhole, and a plugin designed to make your site fantastically beautiful for all sorts of seasons!

And of course we’ve also got some recent news in both the WordPress World and the Tech World in general with additional WordPress Tips!

A quick shout out to our American Listeners out there – Happy Thanksgiving!

For the rest of us – Christmas is approaching! I personally like to bake all my gifts, and I have not had any complaints yet – does someone out there do something unique for gifts rather than buying them every year? IF so I’d love to hear about it!

A few reminders before we start the show today….

Reminders:

• Join us here in person every Monday at 12:00 pm Pacific Time to enjoy our show!
• Show notes are added to wppluginsatoz.com within 24 hours of the show airing; you can find them either on the home page, or in the Podcast Vaults!
• This is a value for value show dear listeners, help us get some loven’ by hitting some like buttons, sharing an episode or two, or just turn our show on really loudly. We will catch somebodies attention!

If you stick around until the end, you will have a chance to hear some good questions – sometimes meant for the greenies, sometimes meant for the very experienced – and sometimes the questions are just completely random. Stick around and have a listen, might help! Or at least entertain!

(Don’t feel shy about sending in a message just to say hi! Send along suggestions, questions, recommendations, news, art – we always love to hear from our listeners!)

Let’s start the show with this weeks Featured Artist:

Artist: 

Who is our artist today?!?

Today is…. Grok! He has recovered well from his latest lobotomy – I guess this means he will be getting another one soon enough.

We would love some new art from our Producers out there! If you are so inclined, you can send it into us at amber@wppro.ca or john@wppro.ca. If you need some inspiration, you can always go to our site wppluginsatoz.com and check out our Art Vaults – you will find the link for it on the left hand menu.

We can NEVER have too much art!

Breaking News in the WordPress World at large!! 

If you have anything you think should be added please send it into me at amber@wppro.ca!

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report
(https://solidwp.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-november-19-2025) – In this report there are 149 vulnerabilities. 148 are plugins this week, with 1 Theme.
Plugins: 67 patched, 81 left to go!
Themes: 0 patched, 1 left to go!

WordPress Vulnerability Report from PatchStack
(https://patchstack.com/database/) – These guys always have the latest information on what is going on regarding the latest in vulnerabilities.

Critical Windows graphics vulnerability lets hackers seize control with a single image
(https://cybersecuritynews.com/critical-windows-graphics-vulnerability) – This is an important thing to be aware of. There is a remote code execution flaw in Microsoft’s Windows Graphics Component that is allowing attackers to seize control of systems using specially crafted JPEG images. To learn more about this follow the link in the show notes.

WordPress 6.9 to bring performance gains with fetchpriority support, increased inline CSS, and new output buffer.
(https://www.therepository.email/core-contributors-prepare-to-iframe-the-post-editor-in-7-0-prompting-backward-compatibility-concerns) – 6.9 drops December 2nd, so get ready! The items that are said to be coming our way are the fetchpriority support for scripts, increased inline CSS, minify theme styles, add on-demand block styles for classic themes, and there will be a debut of a new template enhancement output buffer. For those who are interested in finding out more before it drops, follow the link in our show notes!

Core contributors prepare to iframe the Post Editor in 7.0, prompting backward-compatibility concerns
(https://www.therepository.email/core-contributors-prepare-to-iframe-the-post-editor-in-7-0-prompting-backward-compatibility-concerns) – Core contributors are gearing up to move the Post Editor into an iframe in WordPress 7.0. There are worries regarding backwards compatibility over this, and talk about how this is now a deadline for a version upgrade rather than the usual ‘ask’ for upgrading as the backwards compatibility does not seem like it will work.

Awesome Motive ends Seahawk Media investment, shuts down WPBeginner Pro services
(https://www.therepository.email/awesome-motive-ends-seahawk-media-investment-shuts-down-wpbeginner-pro-services) – Awesome Motive has exited its investment in Seahawk Media, and is shutting down WPBeginner Pro Services. Reasons are cited as a ‘misalignment in our long-term vision with Seahawk Media leadership”. It does not seem that there is any truly bad blood between the two, just that they aren’t wanting to go in the same direction anymore. For those who use WPBeginners, their support team will be in touch directly with next steps.

Mathematical proof debunks the idea that the universe is a computer simulation
(https://phys.org/news/2025-10-mathematical-proof-debunks-idea-universe.html) – I wanted to bring this forth because I have been seeing a lot of ‘we live in a computer simulation’ things lately, and I find it interesting that UBC over in the Okanagan decided to pick this up and study it, test it, and debunk it.
Although really when I read this, I personally came to the understanding that they are ‘disproving’ this theory by saying that it cannot be proven. The thought behind it is:
‘We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of a physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity, therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself.’
Back to the cat in the box, which you cannot prove or disprove.
I would love for our listeners to check this out, and get back to me on your own thoughts about this – my personal thoughts are that the whole ‘you can’t disprove something unless you can prove it’ – I think it’s kinda weak. But I am not a scientist. Thoughts?

(Go visit WP Shout Comics  OR Word Chronicles OR  MonkeyUser.com for a fantastic brain break – my favourite today is this one!)

Some Extras – check out our Facebook or Twitter!

Inside FAIR’s approach to security: a new model for WordPress package safety
(https://www.therepository.email/inside-fairs-approach-to-security-a-new-model-for-wordpress-package-safety)

Windows 11 users rebel as top Microsoft exec says operating system is ‘evolving into an agentic OS’
(https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/windows-11-users-rebel-as-top-microsoft-exec-says-operating-system-is-evolving-into-an-agentic-os)

Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken
(https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-finally-admits-almost-all-major-windows-11-core-features-are-broken)

The WP Community Collective celebrates contributor day table leads with appreciation campaign
(https://www.therepository.email/the-wp-community-collective-celebrates-contributor-day-table-leads-with-appreciation-campaign)

WordPress community mourns the death of contributor Zeel Thakkar
(https://www.therepository.email/wordpress-community-mourns-the-death-of-contributor-zeel-thakkar)

Woo launches Reddit integration, expanding its push into social-commerce channels
(https://www.therepository.email/woo-launches-reddit-integration-expanding-its-push-into-social-commerce-channels)

WordPress global sponsorship drops flat fee, returns to tiered pricing for 2026
(https://www.therepository.email/wordpress-global-sponsorship-drops-flat-fee-returns-to-tiered-pricing-for-2026)

WP Engine moves to dismiss Automattic’s counterclaims, arguing they were filed too late
(https://www.therepository.email/wp-engine-moves-to-dismiss-automattics-counterclaims-arguing-they-were-filed-too-late)

FAIR and Patchstack build security MVP at CloudFest USA hackathon
(https://www.therepository.email/fair-and-patchstack-build-security-mvp-at-cloudfest-usa-hackathon)

Rogue’s Corner News and Extras

Be sure to go and check out the new and unique plugins now available from WPProAtoz.com!

Rogues Corner & Tip of the day

WordPress Items:

This is a great webpage listing many of the latest WordPress new posts recently published.
https://wp.feedland.org/
Core Contributors Prepare to iframe the Post Editor in 7.0, Prompting Backward-Compatibility Concerns
https://www.therepository.email/core-contributors-prepare-to-iframe-the-post-editor-in-7-0-prompting-backward-compatibility-concerns

Small Guys People to follow on X:

https://x.com/jessuppi
https://x.com/perishable black hole for bad bots Jeff Star I review plugin today https://perishablepress.com/
https://x.com/xaver_

Some SEO Stuff:

Open source alternative to Screaming Frog https://www.reddit.com/r/TechSEO/comments/1p049bi/i_got_frustrated_with_screamingfrog_crawler/

Tip of The Day:

Talk about us WPProAtoZ.com as an agency and what we do

A great tip to solve a minor issue when using Elementor for the sub-menu Icon, see this info https://github.com/elementor/elementor/issues/17500
add this to custom css for the menu selector .has-sub-mmenu .sub-menu, .sub-arrow {fill: currentColor;} also for more check out this https://foxscribbler.com/add-different-colors-to-navigation-menu-items/ and while Elementor thinks they fixed it, it seems to have reintroduced since May.

Upcoming Interviews:

Reminder that we have more interviews coming up in the coming weeks with more developers and community members.
Available dates to book are: December 1, 15 & 29
January 12 & 26

Dragon Rating Time with John!

John’s Plugin

Blackhole for Bad Bots

https://wordpress.org/plugins/blackhole-bad-bots/
https://plugin-planet.com/blackhole-pro/

The Lowdown:

Trap bad bots in a virtual black hole.

Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching.

Bye bye bad bots..

Bad bots are the worst. They do all sorts of nasty stuff and waste server resources. The Blackhole plugin helps to stop bad bots and save precious resources for legit visitors.

How does it work?

First the plugin adds a hidden trigger link to the footer of your pages. You then add a line to your robots.txt file that forbids all bots from following the hidden link. Bots that then ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the trap. Once trapped, bad bots are denied further access to your WordPress site.

I call it the “one-strike” rule: bots have one chance to obey your site’s robots.txt rule. Failure to comply results in immediate banishment. The best part is that the Blackhole only affects bad bots: human users never see the hidden link, and good bots obey the robots rules in the first place. Win-win! 🙂
Add a blackhole trap to help stop bad bots

Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching.

Rating 5 Dragons

WordPress Tips

We would love to hear some tid bit tips from some of our producers out there – what did you figure out by breaking something? Or what did you need to learn in order to help someone? You can send these tid bits into me at amber@wppro.ca

My tip to you today…

There is no later.

Now this is especially a rule for my fellow ADHD’rs to pick up, it will help immensely! But it is actually quite useful for EVERYone – there is no later! If you realize there is something that needs to be done, do it right then and there. There are dishes – get up and do them now. There is a project, get started on it now.

When you follow the ‘there is no later’ rule, you will start finding that more gets done yet you have more time to do the enjoyable things – like doom scrolling.

Getting yourself to actually put everything down and get up to get poop done though, that is hard. ‘There is no later’ is a hard one to follow, but it will help immensely – and if you apply it to most aspects of your life, it will help.

That is my advice to you today – there is no later.

Dragon Rating Time with Amber!

Amber’s Plugin

Seasonal Effects & Notice Bar (formerly Halloween Animations)

https://wordpress.org/plugins/halloween-animations

The Lowdown:

I was looking about to see if there were more Halloween plugins this year than last since I didn’t actually get a chance to bring some Halloween plugins forward this year, and I found this! It is so cool, and is good for various seasons rather than just Halloween.

Once downloaded and activated, you will see the dashboard link for it in your left-hand menu under ‘Seasonal Effects’.
Beneath that you got your Dashboard, Notice Bar, and Site Animations.

Unique options I had not seen for free before is the option for Sound Effects. You get a list of 13 sounds to choose from, and you can choose to have them all, or just one and everything in between. Your sounds can be ambient background, so going on continuously, set to random intervals, one after the other, or have multiple of them mixing together. I have never seen that before and I think it is awesome!

The coolest thing about the sounds? There will be a bubble that pops up in the lower right hand corner of your site on the front end, that says ‘play sounds’, offering the user to choose whether they actually WANT to hear the cackling witch while jingle bells plays. Once the box is clicked, the sounds just keep going until the page is refreshed – but the person clicked the box!

You can choose decorations for every page or just particular pages in the ‘general settings’ area, and you can choose between Black Friday/Cyber Monday, New Years, Easter, Christmas, Valentines day, and Halloween.

If you prefer you can also choose templates for each of these. The templates look awesome and don’t seem to slow the site down.

When it comes to the Notice Bar, you again have the ability to completely personalize it, or you can choose from a template. Templates available are Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Special Offer, and Flash Sale. The Cyber Monday one looks the best I think, but they are all pretty awesome!
And each of these allows for a closing X to be there so that people can just X out of the bar up top.

There is also an option to schedule a sale, have the banner pop up when you want and go away when you want, and with this comes a countdown timer that you get to personalize the look and feel of!

This plugin is entirely free, has great documentation, and is so much fun to play around with! It plays well with others, and I recommend you check it out for the upcoming season!

Rating: 5 Dragon

Miscellaneous Announcements from all:

Have an announcement like a meetup, or to announce you’ll be on stage at a WordCamp? Let us know and we will add it here and help get your news out to the world!

WordPress Campus Connect Jinja, Eastern Region, Uganda – October 1 – November 30

WordPress Campus Connect Ponferrada – November 27

Site Editor Workshop Jakarta 2025 – November 27

WordCamp Netherlands 2025 – November 27 – 28

WordCamp Brasil 2025 – November 28 – 29

To see the entire list you can follow the link here in the show notes, then click on ‘More WordCamps’ right below the list of the next 5. https://central.wordcamp.org/

If you are interested in finding a WordPress Meetup somewhere around the world you can go check out the places here: https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/

Keep checking back every week to find out what else is going on!

Donations from across the galaxy!

Producership Credits are a thing that do actually exist – we offer them up to those who donate through Time, Talent or Treasure. You can use these credits to boost up your resume, add to your LinkedIn file, so on and so forth!

Even if you are not interested in receiving a Producership Credit, check out how you can use us as your own stepping ladder in the world of the internets – get yourself an interview, get us to make your announcement for you, let the world know you have something to say or a company worth checking out!
Have a look through our site wppluginsatoz.com. Check out the Time, Talent and Treasure pages.

Today’s Plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugin:

Blackhole for Bad Bots By Jeff Starr

• Easy to set up
• Works with other security plugins
• Blackhole links includes “nofollow” attribute

Rating: 5 Dragons

Amber’s Plugin:

Seasonal Effects & Notice Bar (formerly Halloween Animations) By Sanjay Shankar

• Lightweight plugin with awesome decorations
• Easy to use with pre-built templates
• Scheduled campaigns options with countdown timers

Rating: 5 Dragon

How to reach us:

Feel like sending us something through the snail mail system? You can do that thanks to our brick and mortar address that we provide for you!
You can also reach us the more common way of the internets – have both of our internets available down below for ya!

Brick & Mortar Address
WP Plugins A to Z
C/O John Overall 
20-754 E Fairview Rd. 
Victoria, BC  V9A 5T9  
Canada

Internets Addresses

John:

• My website: http://www.johnoverall.com/  
• WordPress Emergency Support: http://wppro.ca/wpemergency
• email: john@wppro.ca

Amber:

• email: amber@wppro.ca

Q & A Time with Amber – Catch this info on our YouTube Channel

If you have questions you would like to have asked on the show, send them in to me at Amber@WPPro.ca – we may never stump my dad, but we can get some good conversation out of him at least!

• What in a plugin draws you back to it over and over, why that one over others that are similar?

• What causes a plugin to be dropped like a hot potato for you?

Questions asked after closing credits:

• What constitutes a good security plugin do you think?

• What is it about some plugins that makes it so they don’t play well with others, causing the site to break or other plugins to break once activated?