Years ago in the early days of WordPress, everything was free. You either chose a boring default theme, picked one someone else had created or wrote your own theme. Then two things happened: 1) people realized they need to make money and 2) hackers discovered themes are a way to create security holes.
Unfortunately, since one can get website code easily, it is easy for a hacker to use a particular theme to hack your website. Also, there is the do-it-yourself trend, in which someone who knows no coding wants to set up a whole WordPress site with only a click here and there.
However, if one also wants a complex theme or lots of choices, this can bring about what is called “code bloat” – lots of calls to the database that slows down your site or lots of short codes that make theme switching difficult. In this post we will discuss two issues: theme security and code bloat. Then the post will suggest a few ways to make good theme choices.
Continue reading “Choosing WordPress Themes: Security Risks, Code Bloat and Other Issues”
