Hi @wordlion,
Thank you for your feedback! You make a very valid point about UX design: red indicators usually signal that an action is required, whereas in our case, it’s just a status report (“Threats blocked”).
We appreciate the suggestion and will definitely consider adding an option to toggle these badges in a future update (likely v8.7).
Immediate Solution:
In the meantime, you can regain control of your workspace by adding this small snippet to your theme’s functions.php file (or using a Code Snippets plugin). It simply hides the red notification bubbles for this plugin:codePHP
add_action('admin_head', 'advaipbl_hide_menu_badges');
function advaipbl_hide_menu_badges() {
echo '<style>
#toplevel_page_advaipbl_settings_page .awaiting-mod,
#toplevel_page_advaipbl_settings_page .update-plugins {
display: none !important;
}
</style>';
}
This will instantly remove the “noise” while keeping the protection active in the background.
Thanks for helping us improve the interface!
Best regards,
Thread Starter
Fields
(@wordlion)
An answer within the hour on a Sunday is super impressive.
Thank you all the more for understanding and endeavoring to provide more user control. The ai copyright usage disaster–and backed by the executive and judicial branch–means that it can make zero sense for many types of creators to provide information online. Have been forced to take down years of work as the wretched creeps in ai have zero right to any of it.
Am deep into working on ways to mitigate and you are very much on a top tier track. Rooting for you big time. Thank you.
Hi @wordlion,
Thank you so much for your kind words! I am really glad the solution worked for you.
I completely understand your frustration regarding AI scraping and content protection. That battle is actually one of the main reasons I continue to develop this plugin—to give creators the agency to decide who (or what) gets to access their work.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend checking the Blocking Rules > User Agents tab. The default blocklist includes many of the major AI scrapers (like GPTBot, CCBot, ClaudeBot, and Bytespider). You can enforce those blocks to help keep your content safe from unauthorized training data collection.
Thanks again for your support and for rooting for us!
Best regards,
Thread Starter
Fields
(@wordlion)
Thank you also for the code, very generous. I’d seen some of that on forums but elected to go with ublock element blocker so as to be able to toggle with ease, but yet concerned that important notes may be missed. In any case, free plugins do deserve promotional opportunity and yet so many of them do it so dumbly and intrusively that one becomes plenty picky about controlling the workspace. There are ways to strike a balance.
# === Vulnerability Scanners & Pentesting Tools ===
Acunetix
Arachni
Burp
Dirb
DirBuster
Feroxbuster
Go-http-client
Havij
Nessus
Nikto
Nmap
Netsparker
OpenVAS
Photon/1.0
sqlmap
Vega
Wfuzz
WhatWeb
WPScan
WPSec
ZAP/
masscan
ScanNG
PressVuln
PostmanRuntime
CensysInspect
Expanse
internet-measurement
JSScanner/
paloaltonetworks
# === Generic Bots & Scripting Libraries ===
curl
HTTrack
Java/
okhttp
perl
php/
Python
python-requests
Scrapy
wget
libwww
ruby
# === Aggressive Scrapers & Black Hat SEO Bots ===
#AhrefsBot
Bytespider
contabot
dataprovider
DigExt
DotBot
EmailCollector
ExtractorPro
MegaIndex
#MJ12bot
SemrushBot
WebCollector
WebCopier
AliyunSecBot
AwarioBot
BW/
#GoogleOther
IonCrawl
ISSCyberRiskCrawler
# === Spam, Low-Quality AI & Comment Bots ===
Applebot-Extended
ClaudeBot
Diffbot
FacebookBot
FriendlyCrawler
#Google-Extended
ImagesiftBot
Image2dataset
#Meta-ExternalAgent
omgili
Timpibot
omgilibot
AcoonBot/
anthropic-ai
BoardReader
CCBot
ChatGPT-User
Claude-Web
DataForSeoBot
GPTBot
PerplexityBot
petalbot
#YandexBot
ZmEu
# === Aggressive Regional Crawlers (optional) ===
Baiduspider
Baiduspider-image
Baiduspider-news
Barkrowler
msnbot-media
SeznamBot
Sogou
YisouSpider
BLEXBot
news-please
Orbbot
peer39_crawler
VelenPublicWebCrawler
#wp_is_mobile
Zoominfobot
# === Suspicious or Malformed User-Agents ===
Dalvik/
morfeus
ShellBot
zgrab
Chrome/45
Mozilla/4.0
Empty
Mozlila
GRequests/
Common User-Agent Suggestions to Block
You can copy and paste in Blocking Rules > User Agents > Blocked User-Agents List
More info https://advaipbl.com/bots-you-should-block-to-protect-your-content/
Thread Starter
Fields
(@wordlion)
Multiple updates and it looks like you have chosen to keep all this red alert intensity. On the plugin page alone I see:
- Red bubble by security on the left
- Red bubble by IP management on the left
- Red bubble at the IP management on the top
- Red bubble on live attack map
and all four red bubble show the same figure. The very same and nothing else.
Do you consider this helpful and wise? Four red bubbles all with the same information? I do not. At all.
While your blocks are enormously welcome, as they are from all plugins we use to protect and serve out work, I do not tally count them as a daily way of life on my dashboard and navigation. I don’t get a dopamine hit when I reach a round number, nor throw a party when a special piece of numerology has its moment in the sun. I know how to check when I want, i.e. go to the plugin page and review, but I have to chosen to block things I couldn’t care less about and would ninety-eight percent of the time rather not even be distracted by in any way. That is the point of blocking. Not to be alerted or concerned each time a weasel scraper drops by because that is constant. Does a moth trap update you with red indicator of moths caught? Do you want a red bubble on your phone for every spoof call block?
No. Of course not. Out of sight out of mind get work done with minimal distraction and peace of mind.
Four bubbles all with the same total block count. What value–let alone actionable value–does a total over weeks, months, years provide? Yes, you are not like the loser plugins elementor, zero spam, and tons other long deleted ones that hijack dashboards and act in long tradition with hamhanded human clueless tech marketers since the dawn of digits, but wow. Where in life do you desire four RED alerts all with the same info? A car? A plane? A home security system? Nothing proceeds this way my friends, or rather, just one thing. Y’all.
So having failed to instill a common sense, humanist approach to your truly exceptional application, I turn to code. Yet appears this “snippet” you provided will then wipe them all out?
So our choice is up to four–so far–of the same or none, you offer?
Thank you.
