Q: 8G Firewall
Hi Lars, I saw in another Q&A you mentioned that Security Ninja uses the 8G firewall by Jeff Starr.
So what if I already have the code added to my htaccess file? Do I need to delete it to
avoid duplication/redundancy?
Or can I disable just the firewall in your plugin and use htaccess for that? Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that using htaccess for 8G and disabling the firewall in the plugin may yield better performance.
Lars_Koudal
Mar 30, 2025A: Hello,
Yes, you are correct! If you already have the 8G firewall rules added to your htaccess file, you can certainly keep them in place and disable the firewall in the plugin. This can help improve performance, as you won’t have duplicate rules running.
We recommend enabling the "Block Suspicious Page Requests" feature in the plugin instead. This allows you to retain the benefits of the plugin, such as login protection and other security features, without interfering with your existing htaccess rules.
iXzenoSPLUSThanks! I read in another Q&A that you use a customized version of the 8G firewall, specifically tweaked for WordPress — is this any different (better, worse) than the standard list that can be downloaded on the nG FIrewall website?
Aside from the performance benefits of using htaccess, I'm wondering if your version has any benefits that I should consider?
iXzenoSPLUSSorry, forgot one more thing — your plugin states its a "Cloud Firewall" that is a "dynamic, continuously changing database of bad IP addresses, updated every six hours."
Is this different from manually adding 8G to the htaccess file? i.e. I was under the impression that the htaccess 8G is a static list that requires periodic maintenance, so your plugin has the benefit of being dynamic?
Verified purchaser
The 8G list is essentially the same as the one you’d manually add to the htaccess file, but our Cloud Firewall uses an internal IP service to block confirmed malicious IPs, which is dynamic and updates regularly. Let us know if you need more details!