This image-compression feature

Hi there @ate-up-with-motor

Thanks for your feedback !

The toggle switch for the “Automatically compress newly-added images” setting is not labeled — is this turned off by default? (If not, it should be!) That switch needs to be more clearly labeled.

Its turned off by default. That said Im recording your feedback about a better label

I toggled that setting on and then off to make sure it was indeed set to off. In that event, does it send any data to the third-party service if the setting is turned off before any new images are uploaded, assuming I don’t select existing images and hit “Compress the selected images”?

Nope, the images are sent only when you either explicitly send data using the “Compress Images” action or turn the autosmush toggle on.

For security reasons, I’m not wild about having my server settings in plain text in the smush.log file.

Thanks, we have now moved the file out to a different location. We will also look at recording this information differently.

I would really prefer if there were a master toggle to disable these features — just grey out all the others — if you don’t want to use them, to reduce the risk of accidentally enqueuing and starting the compression process.

I’m sure there are people who want this feature, but I am troubled by the way it’s implemented and it really seems like it should be a completely different plugin.

Once again, I’ve recorded your feedback on this. We will consider this with the rest of the team.

Thanks for your time !

Just to clarify, does simply toggling the auto-compress switch on and off send any data to an external server? Or only if it’s turned on and a new image is then uploaded?

Also, I notice that the smush.log file seems to be created when I access the plugin’s Images menu even if I don’t touch any of its controls. Does that log indicate that data was sent to the third-party server, or is that just an initialization function?

Thanks!

If you are using an external third-party service for image compression, I would strongly recommend you provide detailed information in the plugin documentation explaining what data is transmitted, to whom, and for what purposes, including links to each external service’s privacy policy. A functionality like the smush service implicates GDPR-type privacy rules for many users, who will need to know in some detail what data is involved so they can communicate that to their visitors in their own privacy policies and terms of service.

(I really wish WordPress would start require plugin and theme developers to spell out what third-party services and/or resources their creations use and include that information in their documentation. It’s good practice, and for users in some jurisdictions, it’s now a legal issue.)

Hi again @ate-up-with-motor

Just to clarify, does simply toggling the auto-compress switch on and off send any data to an external server? Or only if it’s turned on and a new image is then uploaded?

Yes this is exactly correct, data is sent outside the server nly if it’s turned on and a new image is then uploaded.

Also, I notice that the smush.log file seems to be created when I access the plugin’s Images menu even if I don’t touch any of its controls. Does that log indicate that data was sent to the third-party server, or is that just an initialization function?

This is an initialization function that logs the state of the server before any compression work is carried out. We have obfuscated the file name (added a truncated salt) and have changed its location in response to your earlier comments.

If you are using an external third-party service for image compression, I would strongly recommend you provide detailed information in the plugin documentation explaining what data is transmitted, to whom, and for what purposes, including links to each external service’s privacy policy.

We are doing this now. It should be live shortly

Thanks again for the really valuable feedback, appreciate the time you’ve taken out to give it to us