On to getting the right plugins so that it is easy to clone the environment. Some notes on keeping the minimal number of plugins and therefore surface area on attacks
- I’ve been using lots of different plugins, but the WordPress JetPack seems to keep growing and it is free, so some of the ones I don’t use anymore are WP-cache as JetPack has a caching system.
Plugins I don’t think I need anymore as jetpack has grown:
- Also, BuddyPress which connected the blog to all the various networking platforms has been subsumed by JetPack. The settings are really hard to find now, so you just have to go through the many boxes and find the social connection. It connects via WordPress.com. Jetpack also now allows comments and login from other accounts like Facebook and Twitter and it creates sitemaps and so forth.
- Advanced Automatic Updates. Now that there are automatic plugin updates on the main screen.
- Akismet Anti-Spam. Subsumed by JetPack
Things that I’m keeping for now:
- Amazon Affiliate Tag. Make a little money, every Amazon link has my referral posted on it.
- UpgradePlus. A way to take backups and have them stored into a Google Drive.
- Use Any Font. Let’s you use a single new font if you like
- iThemes Security. Got to have anti-virus and other defenses
- Yoast SEO. So you know what is really working.
Then ones I’m experimenting with:
- MonsterInsights. Use Google Analytics to figure out what is going on.
- Elementor. It really is a pretty good layout tool, but I’m mainly just using vanilla themes right now.
- TablePress. Got to figure out how this relates to markdown that JetPack now supports.
- Ultimate Member. A user management package
