Why I Stay Away From “Wordpress Automatic Upgrade”
How would you like to go up to a random stranger, hand them your wallet, and expect them not to take anything?
Your doing the same thing with your blog when you install the “Wordpress Automatic Upgrade” plugin. Not in a million years would I ever install such a plugin to “Automatically” install the latest version of Wordpress for me. Let me break down for you in 2 headlines:
Handing Over The Keys To Your Blog
In order to make such a plugin functional, you type in your “FTP Details”. If the plugin creators wanted, they could own your blog and anyone elses that installed the plugin with a few clicks. The creators say that it is just used to run the plugin, but I’ve learned over time that there are very few things on the internet that don’t have a catch.
You Don’t Learn Anything
By having it automatically install, what do you learn about your Wordpress Blog/Web Hosting? They say that practice makes perfect, but this plugin eliminates the purpose of going into your folder and upgrading manually.
Thats just my 2 cents, but apparently 67, 880 people still disagree with me. What are your thoughts on having a plugin upgrade your Wordpress for you?
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I fully agree with you, its really not a good idea to let it update automatically. I may just be old fashioned, lol, but I still like to do it manually myself, I still don’t trust automated updates to Wordpress. I think I’ve heard similar idea on this topic from <a href=”http://theuniversitykid.com”>entrepreneur blogs</a> like TheUniversityKid.com and such…
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I like to upgrade on my own, although sometimes it is a bit of a pain. I really don’t enjoy doing it, but it is much safer than allowing someone access to my blog. Thanks for the heads up.
I can’t upgrade that way anyway because my server has remote file access disabled
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I tried this plugin ONCE. I had all kinds of problems and had to do the upgrade manually anyway. That same eerie feeling that you got about handing over your house keys or your wallet was the same one I had. As tempting as it is to go the “easy” route, I don’t think I’ll do that again - unless I’m the one that’s designing the app to do it :-). That’ll be the day. . . . .
It’s usually a good idea to backup your data before upgrading your CMS, so if something goes wrong during your auto-update, you’re in trouble! Even if you data is fine, something else might go wrong (like a plug-in not working with the new version) meaning that you have to scramble to fix, even if you do not have time.By manually updating, you can manage these issues, and give yourself enough time to fix problems as they arise.Actually, I have not updated my version of WordPress since I started. It works fine now, so why bother with the hassle?~Graham
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Hi Brad, me again.
I get your point. I use automatic upgrade but have a Wordpress db backup plugin that sends me backup to my e mail address just in case anything goes wrong or as you posted some plugin author tries to do anything funny in my blog. So just for safety I send the db back up to my Gmail acount instead of my site email in case the server gets owned. Its really a must for anyone using Wordpress. If the database goes corrupt a blog basically is destroyed. ~Archie (Luis)
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@ All - Thanks for your input. I enjoyed reading your viewpoints on this plugin.
@ Archie - That would be a great plugin to post about in an upcoming post
In one of my other blogs, I use it. But I turn it on only if I see WordPress released the latest version, then I turn it off after backing up stuff and upgrading.
Does that help? Just wondering.
I personally find manual update much better, as you’ve mentioned, its good to learn something.Meanwhile, the above number already raised.
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I agree with you, but sometime we can’t do it manually because we have to maintain several website, so many people find that it’s easier to have the automatic updates do the job.
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I agree with you, but sometime we can’t do it manually because we have to maintain several website, so many people find that it’s easier to have the automatic updates do the job.
I have installed automatic update for wordpress …
but then I read your post, I decide to postpone of using it ..
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I agree with you. I once install it on my previous blog and it almost ruined it. Besides, manually installing things on the web is a great way to learn how things online works.
There are a lot of great services that I would like to use on my blog, but I don’t use, because they require your login information. I still review every line of code in each plugin that I consider using before I actually activate upload it to my site, because I don’t want to install malicious code. So, there is definitely no way that I’m going to flat out give my login information to a random person on the internet.
I agree with you on the learning thing. I *have* to know what’s going on; what tables are being updated, etc. I like to know what’s going on behind the scenes and without doing the upgrade by hand, I feel guilty and feel as though I’m lost. I know that’s weird. I’m just a visual person.
The automatic upgrades remind of me the site generators that create entire sites for people. I think the people who use those sites are the people who use the automatic upgrades and the same people who ask basic questions like, “How do you create a link to a picture?”