Come together with the global Drupal community in Rotterdam, 28 Sept – 1 Oct 2026. Sessions, contribution, connection, and Early Bird savings until 8 June.
By paulcoghlan on
I have a premium area on my site but offer a 1-week free trial. I have noticed one or two people sign up for multiple free trials and one guy even went so far as to create new email addresses to try to mask the fact. I am finding the culprits by searching for their IP addresses.
Is there any method/module that would help prevent this abuse?? Nothing springs to mind.
Thanks,
Paul
Comments
.
You can ban host IPs in admin/user/rules
I use a module called GoAway,
I use a module called GoAway, it seems to do the trick. http://drupal.org/project/goaway
Danny Englander | Twitter | Instagram
what about people who use
what about people who use those programs that let you browse anonymously which always displays a different IP address when you visit a site? How would you ban them or put restriction settings on them? Tor Browser is one example of these types of IP address hiding programs.
Yes, I have obviously tried
Yes, I have obviously tried banning IP addresses as it it built into the Drupal core offering.
Unfortunately it will at best only impact those that have almost no knowledge of the internet.
That said, I do think it raises the bar so that 80% of people either will not or cannot circumvent it.
I was trying to see if there was some other mechanism to prevent this problem. It is a shame the MAC address cannot be used to pinpoint the machine being used.
I guess the only other way is to ask for a credit card as part of the free trial which will not be billed etc. The downside here being that it will put off many that do not wish to divulge their credit card info until they have decided to purchase.
.
Kids who go through using anonymizers and creating new accounts probably will never pay you a cent anyway, if their life doesn't depend on it. So, maybe it isn't worth spending more time on it. Given that, you are right about discomforting paying customers.
Another possible hurdle is to
Another possible hurdle is to use cookies to identify returning visitors...
They can clear cookies, so it is just another hurdle.
My Drupal sites: