Why I like GASP the Spam Fighting Plugin

October 19, 2010 - Last Modified: October 19, 2010 by James Johnston

Recently I came across a new anti-spam plugin for WordPress. This plugin is a collaborative project from Gowmap, Andy from CommentLuv, and imput from several other bloggers. This is a new plugin and has only been out just over a week and I have say I love it! So far, I haven’t had any comment spam from the spam bots. It is easy to install and even easier to configure!

Why GASP, Whats So Great About It?

GASP, was created as a replacement for Akismet and other CAPCHTA like plugins. This plugin is more reliable and designed not give us blog owners a headache by deleting and blocking our valueable “non-spam” comments. By default other plugins are designed to block plugins by IP Addresses, usersnames, and certain keywords. Sometimes these “rules” will cause everyday commentors to be blocked simply because they might be a spammer. Once marked as a spammer, it can take sometime to be removed from the spammer databases.

How Does GASP Block Spammers?

GrowMap Anti-Spambot uses JavaScript to generate a checkbox to the comment form. This check box will ask a commentor to confirm they are not spammers. Yeah, its that simple. If you do not check this box, a popup warning message comes up asking you to check the box if your not a spammer. If its bot, it won’t see the box and it can not post a comment. Per the plugin’s description, it should stop 99% of all automated spam bots.

Resason Why to Choose GASP – quoted from Growmap’s article

“No false positives – your favorite commentators and new readers WILL be able to easily comment in your blog.”
“Blocks spam that Akismet was letting through. We are getting ZERO bot spam. Only those commenting manually who check the “I am not a spammer box” can leave comments.”
“Easier for commentators than using a Captcha or math plugin – never a “wrong” answer that isn’t wrong or a problem with cookies!”

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned before, this is great plugin and I love it. And it was coded by Andy, so their shouldn’t any issues with the code. So far, I haven’t gotten any automated spam since installing a week ago. We all know, that no anit-spam plugin is perfect, but GASP is the next best thing. Once you install this plugin you won’t need any other plugin. Get rid of those other plugins and give GASP a try. I promise, you won’t be dissappointed. I will warn you, that this plugin will not stop spam comments created by humans. But you shouldn’t get to many, and if you set your comment system for all new commentors need to be moderated first, then they shouldn’t slip by.

Let us know what you think…

As always, we wanna know what you think. Have you tried it out yet?

Questions About GASP?

If you have any questions, troubleshooting issues, check out Growmap’s article about GASP. Gail will take care of you. If you want to know more, how to install / configure it, screenshots, or just a user review, check out my article about GASP.

Important links

Once you test it out, please head over to the WordPress Directory and tell everyone that it works, and rate it.

About James Johnston

Follow @element321

spends most of his free time using social media and loves to teach others about design, web development, CSS, SEO, and social media. He is addicted to Wordpress, and social media. You can reach him website, Evolutionary Designs Blog.

{ 67 Responses }

Andy Moore says:

I really hope this helps. I have Akismet and CommentLuv but was absolutely hammered over the past few days by so-called 'forum' style trash. I am hoping that the GASP will help do the trick. I will go and download it now. Thank you for your help. I knew it would be a good idea to join this group. Best Wishes to you. Andy Moore
Ankur says:

I have used both Akismet and GASP for my blog. Both are very useful for avoiding spam comments. I also prefer GASP it rocks.
Bryan says:

I maintain 4 blogs and I post to occasionally. About a year ago I noticed more and more emails requesting moderation of a comment. And, when I reviewed those comments , most of them seemed to make no sense and it was evident that "the commenter" didn't even read the blog post. At the beginning I just deleted them. But, you know,that got to be a hassle. Especially on 4 different blogs. And the number of comments just kept increasing. A little while ago I ran across the GASP plugin and loved it. I installed in on all my blogs. And, I have to say that it stopped the spam comments almost 100% immediately. I still get the random "nice post", but I am not getting the endless links and poorly worded random comments that plagued my sites for the last year.
Amsoil says:

I have been telling everyone I know about the GASP plug-in. I manage a lot of blogs and will not have to turn ASKIMET off and replace them all with the new GASP plug-in. On many of the blogs we run, we do not have blog commenting enabled. Now with the GASP plug-in, I feel confident to turn commenting on as real humans will finally be able to post comments. This is a fantastic plug-in.
Ned Carey says:

Thanks, I've seen that check box on several sites and didn't know what it was. It seemed almost too simple to work but your explanation makes sense. Oddly I don't see it here. Is that because it's a guest post or did you stop using it?
chi3nming says:

thanks HAHA it seriously works! and nowadays my friends no longer need to input those bloody codes WOOTS!
Rakesh Kumar says:

I have seen this check box feature on many blogs but i didn't know which plugin has this feature. But here i found and i will use it on my blog. Thanks James
Erik Emanuelli says:

Thank you !! I was actually looking for THAT plugin... I am so tired of getting so many bot comments...
Mani Viswanathan says:

I was looking out for a similar plugin. Thanks for posting it. Will use it on my blog if needed. Currently I'm using the Conditional CAPTCHA plugin, which helps me a lot.
Herrin says:

A good idea for sure but the main problem at the moment is human spam. Bloody humans!@
Isabel Rodrigues - Pro Blogger Journey says:

I have been using Askismet all this while and it seems to be doing a good job. Though at times even the good comments are marked as SPAM. Not sure how can I avoid this. I will surely give this new plugin a try
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  That Akismet puts good comments into spam and does not block spam left by bots is precisely why we wanted a new plugin. As your blog gets more popular you end up with a dozen or more real comments lost in a sea of hundreds or even thousands of spam PER DAY in some blogs. You can not avoid that problem using Akismet which is why this new plugin was created. It eliminates both false positives (real comments being sent to spam or even deleted outright before you even see them) and spambot spam getting in.
Michael Aulia says:

I'm using the AntiSpam Bee plug-in that doesn't require anything from the commentator :) (it detects auto insertion by bots and scripts). So far it's looking good and I have no complaints
Tom says:

It's a good plugin, but it will be better if it can prevent human spam.
- Karan Labra says:
  
  It worked great for me.. Just give it a try.
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  The reason Akismet doesn't work is because there is no consensus on what spam is or is not. I did a survey not long ago and the bloggers who believe any comment from someone they don't know or that links to a business of any kind is spam and those who believe even businesses and new readers can contribute through comments were evenly split. When you get hit by hundreds to thousands of spambot spam you won't mind a handful or even a dozen or two human-created spam to moderate. IMHO, bloggers are far too concerned over links and spam and not paying nearly enough attention to how we treat our readers and commentators who - if you have a business - are customers or potential clients. We - as fallible humans - can NOT read the minds of those who comment nor can we see into their hearts and judge their motives for commenting. I believe we should welcome new commentators and guide them in how best to comment - not slam them for daring to interact with us as this obcession with killing all spam is doing.
Rahul says:

spams are waiting for you everyday you start surfing , that will be one of the ways so i can be a bit secured at least , thank You
- Alex Dumitru says:
  
  They will find a way to get past it :)
Hans says:

I think you should also enable Askismet or something similair. Because if this plugin gets too populair, spammers will find a way to check that box. It works while not many people use it.
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  Hi Hans, Alex, The entire point of the plugin is to eliminate Akismet. If spammers manage to check that box I have no doubt that Andy at CommentLuv and other contributors who worked on improving these first versions will find a way to change it so they get locked out again.
  - Hans says:
    
    Hi Gail, I guess you are right. If Askismet would be enabled, what's the point of GASP? Andy from CommentLuv should indeed stay on top of it, and make sure no bots figure out how to beat GASP.
Latief says:

Thanks bro! This days Spam is very annoying and waste my time. Akismet let them through, hope your suggestion is better :)
- element321 says:
  
  Latief, GASP should work for you. Let us know how well it works...
Karan Labra says:

I still use akismet. Heard of Gasp for the first time and it looks worth a try.
- element321 says:
  
  Karan, Once you install GASP you won' t have to use Akismet anymore...
Extreme John says:

I have read nothing but excellent feedback in regards to GASP, I just downloaded it a few minutes ago from another blog in my reader. Will be installing that bad boy very shortly.
- element321 says:
  
  Thats great John! Let us know how you like it and well it works for you.
  - Extreme John says:
    
    Installed, locked and loaded. I'll keep you posted.
Barry H says:

I have had lots of problems both with spam and the plugins I installed to try to get rid of it. All the captcha type plugins I installed seemed to break the comments system completely. Akismet is really effective one though. They have started to charge you for the API key you need to make it work, but if you start a free wordpress.com blog (you can abandon it straight away) you can use the wordpress.com API key with it. As a bonus this also means you can have wordpress.com stats in your dashboard!
- element321 says:
  
  Thats great and all. But the GASP plugin is a replace for Alkismet. So you won't need it with GASP. Its easier to install and free. Plus it doesn't block good comments, like some plugins can do sometimes...
Suresh Khanal says:

I feel as if it has been a miracle. I could never understand how a check box in comment form filtered those spammers out of the box, but after I installed the pluggin, there are 0 spam comments in my blog :-) I wonder if those smart programs can't make this javascript check box ticked automatically? May they never!
- element321 says:
  
  Thats great that its working for you. Hopefully it will be a long time before they figure out how to trick GASP!
  - Gail Gardner says:
    
    If and when they do Andy at CommentLuv and the many others who contributed including Phil Hhollows at FeedBlitz, Dazzlin Donna Fontenot, and Imran from BloggingJunkie will come up with a new way to lock them out. It is not just that checkbox - there is more going on behind that plugin. If it were easy they would have cracked it already.
John says:

GASP is a great plugin to stop spam bots. But like you said, it still does not stop human spams.
- element321 says:
  
  to be honest, I do not get much in the way of human spams. And when I did get those, it wasnt caught by other ant-spam plugins. I get maybe 1 or 2 a day, if that... To me, I would rather get 2 or 3 spam comments than 20 or 30 spam from the bots that I have to go through and see if its a real comment or just a tricky spambot.
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  When you get a human spammer just put the URLs they are linking or their email address into the blacklist in the Discussion section of your WordPress blog and their comments will go into the spam section for quick review and deletion.
Lennart Heleander says:

Thanks James, in with it direct, I hope gasp spam fighting plugin for WP work vell so I can get of a spam comments with porno, casino, and the other entire skit that full up my box everyday.
- element321 says:
  
  So far it stops it all :)
Bryan says:

James Thx for posting this review up. I've been noticing this check if you are not spam box around some blogs, wondering what plugin is that. Now I know. I think that's a very simple way of filtering the spammers from those who are real commentors. Cheers!
- element321 says:
  
  Bryan, There hasn't been a lot of marketing on the plugin. I am now seeing more and more review for the plugin. Hopefully Andy and Gail will be able to get this plugin more traffic. More people should know about this plugin...
James Johnston says:

Ingrid, keep posting articles and marketing them, you will get more spammy comments. But thats only if you don't install the plugin :)
TJ McDowell says:

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but it seems like this one is going to be pretty easy to get around. If I were writing spamware, I'd just check for the unique text on the page "confirm you are not a spammer", and I'd know that I'd have to have the script check the checkbox. It's super simple to check a checkbox in a script. This may be an effective plugin for now, but it's going to have to get a little more sophisticated if it will continue to be useful once the spammers take half an hour to code around this.
- James Johnston says:
  
  TJ, eventually some will figure it out. But right now they haven't. But currently spambots scripts are not looking for that check box. Once they figure it then the Growmap and Andy will update the plugin and change the rules of the plugin. Then the spambot authors will make changes as well. Its an ugly cycle but this how the life a programmer is... As of right now, I am not getting any spambot comments and I do not comment on sites that use Capcha. I can not read it very well and will only comment on those site if I need to...
  - TJ McDowell says:
    
    At least it's working for now. For some reason, my site still gets spam even with capcha. I think it's real people copying and pasting spam comments. What a waste of time.
    - element321 says:
      
      That could be it... I get human spam once or twice a day. But that still better a 50 or 60 spambots leaving comments. I see those crappy spammy human comments, and if they are copying spambot comments it is such a waste of time. Do they think they can trick us??
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  It is not simply the checkbox - there is more to it than that. If it were easy they would have defeated it by now. If they manage to find a way to get past it there are many bloggers who are programmers who are using it and together we will find a way to lock them out again.
Caleb says:

Captcha is extremely annoying to the point where I sometimes will not comment if I see it and I know I am not the only one who feels this way. GASP on the other hand is extremely simple yet difficult to trick via automated robots and every since installing it I no longer see those infamous "driveby" comments!
- James Johnston says:
  
  Caleb, I agree, no more spam and I hate CAPTCHA, I do my best not to comment on those sites...
Kimi says:

Love G.A.S.P! At the beginning, i didn't intend to try it, but since everyone mentions this new plugin, and my spam folder (Akismet filter) shows many spam bots comments, i then tried. I wait for 2 days and it works like a charm with Akismet. Just love it!
- James Johnston says:
  
  Thanks for sharing Kimi! Good hear its working for you.
- Gail Gardner says:
  
  Hi Kimi, You don't need Akismet if you use this plugin and it is really best to deactivate or even delete it because so many active bloggers have been flagged as spammers and are being blocked or even having their comments deleted by Akismet. There are posts and details about all that in my blog.
Murlu says:

Ah, so that's where it came from :) It's actually really great overall - much better than CAPTCHA because we all know how annoying it can be when you get those uber messed up messages. The checkbox works great because it's very intuitive - I would, however, suggest that it would be great if it were a bit bigger just for ease of use, ya know?
- Caleb says:
  
  I think the size is just right as it's unobtrusive and besides, the popup message which looks like a windows warning is just big enough and will not let a comment make it through unless that little box is ticked ;)
  - James Johnston says:
    
    I agree, its small out of the way and simple. It doesn't really hurt the design of a website like captcha does.
Icechen1 says:

Well, spambots will learn to adapt to this new anti-spam, no? It will become less effective in the near future...
- James Johnston says:
  
  The creators of spambots will adapt. All programs learn to adapt, update and improve themselves. So when the creators learn about this plugin (once its implemented on more sites) then Andy and Growmap will have to "adapt" as well. That's the beauty of programming. If someone can find away around this then, the programs for GASP will find away to stop them...
  - Gail Gardner says:
    
    Many bloggers and programmers contributed ideas to how the plugin works and if the bot programmers manage to defeat it we will collectively find new ways to lock them back out again. If it were easy they would have already got past it. What you see (the check box) is NOT the only method it uses.
Blazing Minds says:

I personally think that GASP is one of the must haves for every WordPress blogger, my spam box has had a complete reprieve since using it, it's just so nice not to have those dreaded SpamBot comments littering my WordPress, oh life as a blogger is so much easier now ;)
Tristan says:

That's a pretty ingenious way to stop automated spam! I'm kind of amazed that no one thought of it sooner. Looks really simple, but really effective. Thanks for the reivew!
Justin Germino says:

This plugin is definitely worth it and I am using it on all 6 blogs I administrate. Note, you can also see my YouTube video demonstration of the GASP plugin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCodKG_o_KM
Sandeep says:

Hey, this looks like an interesting plugin... need to check this one out.. The pop up message seems to be a fantastic idea.. hopefully this works well on the thesis theme. Cheers
- element321 says:
  
  So far, from what I have heard it does! Check it out if you haven't already!
Ingrid Abboud says:

Hi James, Thanks for that great review on GASP. I wasn't familiar with it until now - after reading your post. I'm definitely gonna' go and check it out. Although I don't get too much spam on my blog - those little suckers do manage to slip by every so often. Thanks for sharing and keeping us up to date on the latest plugins :). Cheers
- Karan Labra says:
  
  I think if we use both akismet and GASP then we'll be able to get rid of 100% spam. What do you think?

Why I like GASP the Spam Fighting Plugin

Why GASP, Whats So Great About It?

How Does GASP Block Spammers?

Resason Why to Choose GASP – quoted from Growmap’s article