XF 2.0 Does XenForo 2.0 Handle Spam Registrations Better?

[System0]

I'm a big fan of XenForo and have been here for several years, having moved over from vBulletin which I had used for over ten years.

I love the speed of Xenforo and love how it handles many things like design, however one of the biggest headaches I've had is spam registrations (I appreciate all forums have to deal with this).

I tried just about every spam extension available to XenForo and they all worked to some degree, but I found that the more effective they were at blocking spammers, they more they blocked legitimate registrations too.

For the last few years I've handled this on my forums in different ways. On one forum I have paid registration and users can only sign up after paying a $10 fee. On my other forums I have added manual approval for new members and users have to email me for approval.

Both of these solutions eliminate spam, but they also greatly reduce sign up rates. In a time where everyone posts on social media and hangs out in forums less, getting less sign ups is a problem.

Does the new version of Xenforo tackle this problem? Have anti-spam measures been improved?

I'd love to hear from fellow forum owners that had similar spam problems with me and then upgraded to Xenforo 2.0.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[Chris D]

There isn't really any new anti-spam measures in XF2.

Talking from our own experience, we have all of the default options enabled including Stop Forum Spam, Spam phrases and Akismet.

We get a lot of spam registrations and spam content posted, but over 95% of it is actually caught by these methods. It means spending a bit of time each day rejecting registrations and running the spam cleaner, but very rarely does spam actually get through and posted publicly.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

You answered your own question:

I found that the more effective they were at blocking spammers, they more they blocked legitimate registrations too.

Personally I've not ran XF2 live yet, but from comparing the settings, there doesn't seem to be any new features with admin-controlled settings.


Fillip

 

[System0]

There isn't really any new anti-spam measures in XF2.

Talking from our own experience, we have all of the default options enabled including Stop Forum Spam, Spam phrases and Akismet.

We get a lot of spam registrations and spam content posted, but over 95% of it is actually caught by these methods. It means spending a bit of time each day rejecting registrations and running the spam cleaner, but very rarely does spam actually get through and posted publicly.

I followed all the guides before and it was a nightmare as so many spammers were filtering through and so many real registrations were being held. Also, I don't want to spend a huge amount of time every day manually checking things.

You answered your own question:

Personally I've not ran XF2 live yet, but from comparing the settings, there doesn't seem to be any new features with admin-controlled settings.


Fillip

Thanks Fillip. Will check them out.

 

[CoZmicShReddeR]

Are you using Use reCAPTCHA?

Also I banned a ton of Email providers using huge lists of well known spam bots and spammers.


Here is an example of a few add-ons to help:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ban-spam-emails-mailchecker.5939/

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/banned-emails-1-636-trashmails.6103/

Usually there is something familiar about the spammers like country, IP and email domains.

 

[Bryan]

If you use the built in 'Stop Forum Spam' with reCAPTCHA and Akismet, this will stop the vast majority of spam.

I also have spam phrases which catch most of the remainder as I block any links from members who have just registered.

 

[System0]

I tried every possible setting over the years. Every plugin, every possible anti-spam configuration. CleanTalk was one of the most effective, but isn't full proof.

Maybe I need to revisit it all and try it all again, but last time I had an avalanche of spam getting through and moderation spam registrations and spam threads becomes very time consuming.

Thanks for all the feedback