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Documentation

Everything you need to install, configure, and operate FrothIQ Defense on your WordPress sites.

Getting started

FrothIQ Defense installs like any other WordPress plugin. The whole flow takes about five minutes on a fresh site:

  1. Install the plugin on your WordPress site (ZIP upload from the WordPress admin, or via WP-CLI).
  2. Activate it. You’ll be redirected to the EULA screen — review and accept.
  3. Paste your license key. Generated from your FrothIQ dashboard when you register the site.
  4. Pick a starting mode. We recommend Monitor for the first 24–48 hours, then move to Protect.

Done. Protection is active. Check your activity log to see what’s been detected.

Installation

Two supported install paths:

Via the WordPress admin

  1. Download the latest FrothIQ Defense plugin ZIP from your dashboard.
  2. In WordPress admin: Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
  3. Choose the ZIP and click Install Now.
  4. Click Activate Plugin.

Via WP-CLI

From your site’s working directory:

wp plugin install /path/to/frothiq.zip --activate

Configuration

FrothIQ Defense needs exactly four pieces of information to run, and the EULA flow walks you through all of them on first activation:

  • License key — generated from your dashboard; tells FrothIQ which tenant this site belongs to.
  • Tenant ID — auto-populated from the license key during registration.
  • Block mode — one of monitor, protect, or block. Default is monitor after first install.
  • Log level — how chatty the activity log is: low, medium, or high.

All four are editable from the plugin’s Settings page at any time.

Understanding the three modes

The mode controls what FrothIQ does with questionable traffic. Detection always runs; the mode only affects enforcement.

Monitor

FrothIQ scores every request but blocks nothing. Use this to see what your site’s attack profile looks like before committing to policy. Recommended for the first 24–48 hours after install.

Protect

High-confidence threats are blocked; low-confidence threats are allowed. The everyday operating mode for most production sites.

Block

Anything scored as suspicious is blocked, not just confirmed-malicious. Use when under active attack or when compliance requires aggressive defense. Expect a small number of false positives on edge-case bots.

The activity log

The activity log is the operational record of every decision FrothIQ has made on your site. Accessible from the plugin menu in WordPress admin.

Each entry shows:

  • Masked IP (network portion only — the host portion is replaced with …)
  • Threat score (0–100, higher = more suspicious)
  • Reason the score was assigned
  • Request path
  • Outcome (allowed / blocked)
  • Timestamp

Privacy note: Full IPs are never shown in the UI. They’re written only to your server’s own error log, where you control retention and access.

EULA and licensing

FrothIQ Defense is licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later. Commercial use is permitted. The EULA is a thin layer on top of the GPL that covers the hosted threat-intelligence service — you can use the plugin source under the GPL without ever accepting the EULA, but you can’t use the cloud-backed protection features until you’ve accepted.

See the full EULA for the exact terms.

Troubleshooting

I installed the plugin but protection isn’t active

Check: (1) EULA accepted? Protection is EULA-gated and won’t block anything until you accept. (2) License key pasted correctly? The Settings page shows a red banner if the key is invalid. (3) Does your server allow outbound HTTPS? FrothIQ needs to reach its intelligence service to register the site.

Legitimate visitors are being blocked

Check your current mode. Block mode is intentionally aggressive; drop to Protect if you’re getting false positives. You can also whitelist an IP from the dashboard.

My site went down after installing FrothIQ

Very unlikely, but if it happens: deactivate the plugin via WP-CLI (wp plugin deactivate frothiq) or rename the plugin folder in wp-content/plugins/. Email us at [email protected] with the error — we treat site-down bugs as top priority.

FAQ

Does FrothIQ replace my backup plugin?

No. FrothIQ is focused on preventing attacks; backups are your recovery path if something else goes wrong. Use both.

Does FrothIQ work with my caching plugin?

Yes. FrothIQ runs at a lower layer than page caching and doesn’t conflict with WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, or similar.

Does FrothIQ slow down my site?

No measurable impact on normal requests. Blocking decisions are sub-millisecond against a local policy cache.

Will FrothIQ see my visitors’ form submissions or passwords?

No. FrothIQ inspects request metadata (path, headers, IP reputation) but not request bodies. Your users’ form data never crosses the FrothIQ boundary.

Can I run FrothIQ on a staging site?

Yes. Each site gets its own license-key/site registration so staging and production are tracked separately.

Support

Questions, bug reports, or feature requests: see the contact page.