Thanks for your thoughts about Wordfence and the new sign up process.
The reason we did this is simple. We have no way to adequately track the number of sites using Wordfence beyond the download numbers we see. This isn’t a very good way to be able to future plan and make sure we have the bandwidth and servers available to keep providing the plugin and the services it provides to our paid customers and our free customers like you. Requiring the email (which is only for sending you the license) allows us to spend wisely so we can invest where it is needed. About 90% of our users are using free licenses so it is vital we are able to budget smartly. We’re also not the first plugin in the repository to require this. Akismet does as well if I remember correctly. Intentionally and wisely investing where it is needed now, and where it will be needed in the future is what makes us able to continue providing a plugin with fully functional features like our firewall and malware scanner and other free services like our security management tool, Wordfence Central.
Of course, we understand if providing an email is an issue for you. In that case, we wish you well with whatever security solution you choose to pursue.
Mia
