When troubleshooting problems on a WordPress website, it is common to enable debugging to help find clues to the problem. Once debugging is enabled, a WordPress debug log file will be created to record anything that might be amiss such as PHP errors and warnings. Debugging is a great WordPress Read more…
If you read this blog, you’ll know that we take website security very seriously. And we always recommend using the Cloudflare service as one of the tools in your security toolbox. In this post we will share a simple Cloudflare hack that blocks many of the WordPress brute-force attacks your Read more…
Recently a Watchful Premium user contacted our support team with an urgent request. An update for a custom theme had been released, but it was not yet appearing in Watchful’s updater. Was there another way to install urgent website updates across all the affected sites? Before we give the solution, Read more…
Updating to the latest version of Joomla is perhaps the single most important way to keep your website safe. The latest supported versions of Joomla are the 3.10.x series and the 4.0.x series. All Joomla users should be running one of these two major versions. In August of 2021, Joomla Read more…
Update, August 26, 2021: This update is part of a bigger set of changes to our website management user experience (learn more). The website vulnerability scan at Watchful is an on-demand suite of tools that help detect and manage security risks. This includes looking at security best-practices, file and folder Read more…
Cloudflare is an incredibly powerful tool. When a visitor to your website makes a request to view a page, Cloudflare is the first to intercept it. If your website is a busy intersection in a big city, Cloudflare is the the officer directing traffic. In their role as gatekeeper to Read more…
In 2016, 2-factor authentication (2FA) for web applications was rapidly growing in popularity as important part of overall security. So back then, we were keen to expand our existing 2FA options (Google Authenticator) to include YubiKey for logging into Watchful securely. But now it’s time to say goodbye to YubiKey. Read more…
After November 28, 2021, PHP 7 will only receive security fixes. And while PHP 8 barely registers in the current usage statistics of WordPress and Joomla, it will be the only actively-supported version after that date. So now is a great time to test your website with PHP 8, including Read more…
Aside from all of the uncertainty and change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been an eventful year for Watchful in terms of new features and improvements in the platform. This was especially true for some of Watchful’s core features such as updates, backups and reports. But we Read more…
For most of the last decade, managed website services have exploded across the hosting industry. And if you own or manage a website, you’ve probably heard of popular managed hosting vendors such as WP Engine, Pagely, and CloudAccess, to name a few. Managed hosting has a lot of benefits for Read more…