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If you are in the habit of downloading WordPress themes from the Internet instead of crafting them by hand, know that many WordPress theme sites (not to mention malicious crackers) encrypt their code so novice users can not read or edit them. These encrypted files could be harmless, or might contain code that will destroy your site.
The most common files that are encrypted would be “footer.php” or “functions.php”
If you open either of these files in notepad and see the following:
Their are ways of decrypting this code:
* For code that looks like $o=whatever: you can use this tool to decrypt it.
* For code that looks like $_F=__FILE__: you can use this tool to decrypt it
* For code that looks like eval(gzinflate(base64_decode(‘…’)));: you can use the this script to decrypt it.
Once decrypted, the plain-text code can be inspected. If you deem it safe, cut-and-paste the decrypted code into the source file, which will function as it did before.
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