Social networks are becoming a popular way for internet users to communicate and interact online. People spend hours and hours on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to talk to friends, read the news, discuss events… Unfortunately, this popularity also attracts a significant amount of spammers who continuously expose malicious behaviors. These behaviors lead to misunderstandings and inconveniences on users’ social activities. As the leading solution in building Social Network, phpFox comes right out of the box several tools and options for spam protection on phpFox.
In this part 1 of the series, let’s explore on how to get these tools and setting activated to prevent spammer to activate on your community.
1. Email Verification
The easiest way to eliminate spam is to make it harder for spammers to join in your network. After registering, to be able to login to your network, users have to activate their accounts via a link in the verification email. This solution adds an extra layer to prevent your site as only real registered users can pass this check.
To setup Email Verification, firstly you need to make sure you have correct Mail Server setting which is able to send out emails. Then from AdminCP >> Settings >> Registration Settings >> Turn ON Verify Email At Signup.
2. Captcha
Another method to prevent spam bots to disturb your community is to use Captcha. Basically, captcha is a set of required actions which users have to do before performing any action such as register account or post a thread in Forums… By distinguishing human and computer bot, Captcha eliminates all security threats which come from malicious and automated programs. phpFox supports the use of 3 captcha types. Depend on your site’s audience, you can choose the appropriate captcha type which is the most convenient for your users.
Basic Captcha
A combination of letters & numbers which users have to type in to be able to proceed.
reCaptcha
The captcha technology by Google. It requires users to click on a certain area as instructed.
QR Code
phpFox will generate a random character combination in form of the QR code. Scan the code with your phone to reveal the verification code.
You can read our guide to enable Captcha.
3. Anti Spam Question
This is another solution to get rid of spammers before they can bug out your community. Indeed, adding Anti-spam question and creating your own answers is extremely effective on niche social networks. As you can create a question which is only applicable to your niche community. For instance, the capital city of different states in your country or set the question in another language rather than English. This will totally trick the bots and spammers who are not familiar with your network.
For detailed instructions, you can follow our guide to enable Anti-Spam Questions.
4. Approve Users Manually On Registering
This setting enables Admin to have the privilege to review registering users before they can be active on your community. After registration, the status of the users will be marked as Pending until Admin approves their memberships.
To set up this option, go to AdminCP >> Settings >> Registration Settings >> Turn ON Approve Users.
5. Force Users to Upload Profile Image when registering
Force users to upload profile image while registering guarantees false registrations cut back to a manageable amount. Overall, any registration instance has to perform manually, just because it is truly hard for spammers or bots to accomplish this step automatically.
In addition, with this setting enabled, users will have a better and more completed profile right after registration.
To set up this option, go to AdminCP >> Settings >> Registration Settings >> Turn ON Force Users to Upload Profile Image.
We just introduced very first 5 solutions that you can configure quickly to prevent your phpFox Community from Spam. Let try them all today and share us your experiences.
PS: We will get back with more solutions on phpFox Core soon.