by Abhishek Deshpande 5 (6 reviews)

The Off Switch (formerly WP Avoid Slow)

Name: The Off Switch (formerly WP Avoid Slow)
Rating: 5.0 (6 reviews)
Author: Abhishek Deshpande

Disable unused WordPress features and remove bloat. 116 toggles for performance, security hardening, and WooCommerce — pure PHP, no .

The Off Switch (formerly WP Avoid Slow) ranks #13,419 among WordPress.org plugins with 100+ active installations, is #352 of 1,525 in the Performance category, a 5/5 rating from 6 reviews, and was last updated Sep 7, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Compatible with WP 7.1

v1.12.0 Current Version v1.12.0

Updated 1 week ago Last Update on 07 Sep, 2026

Refreshed 8 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#352 of 1,525 in Performance Top 25% by installs Downloads -49% this week Actively maintained

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#13,419

+113 this week

Active Installs

100+

-41.9%

KW Avg Position

— No change

Downloads

6.7K

+25 today

Support Resolved

— No change

Rating

100%

Review 5 out of 5

5 (6 reviews)

Next Milestone 200

Total Progress 89%

100+ 200+

460

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

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Rank Changes

Current #13,419

Change

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

5.0

6 reviews

Overall 100%

6 (100%)

0 (0%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

No known vulnerabilities on record for The Off Switch (formerly WP Avoid Slow). Checked 1 month ago.

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Plugin Details

Version: 1.12.0
Last Updated: Sep 07, 2026
Requires WP: 5.0+
Tested Up To: 7.1
PHP Version: 7.4 or higher
Author: Abhishek Deshpande

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews: 6
Support Threads: 1
Resolved: 0%

Keywords

Optimize bloat core web vitals performance speed

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners and administrators who want to reduce bloat and harden security without added complexity. It solves the problem of WordPress shipping many enabled-by-default features (scripts, headers, database overhead) that most sites don't need, by letting users toggle each one off individually.

104 individual feature toggles
Disable emoji script
Disable XML-RPC and hard-kill requests
Reduce Heartbeat API polling
Remove WP version tag and headers
Lazy load and prioritize images
Limit post revisions and trash retention
Block user enumeration and author archives

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about The Off Switch (formerly WP Avoid Slow)

Each toggle is independent. Safe defaults are on. Risky ones (jQuery Migrate, defer JS, scripts to footer) are off by default. If something breaks - turn that toggle off. Nothing is written to disk.

Yes. Pure PHP hooks, no .htaccess required.

Only if you don't use Jetpack, the WordPress mobile app, or any XML-RPC client.

Test on staging first. These two are the most likely to cause issues on complex sites - some themes and plugins rely on scripts being available synchronously in <head>.

No. This plugin removes unused WordPress features. For page caching, use a dedicated plugin.

Not currently. The plugin is designed and tested for single-site WordPress installs. Multisite support is planned for a future release.

Yes. When WooCommerce is active, a WooCommerce section appears in Settings -> Off Switch with 10 dedicated toggles for removing WooCommerce frontend overhead. None of the core toggles touch WooCommerce - each module is independent.

Enable the Emoji Script toggle under Bloat Remover. It removes the emoji CDN script (~15 KB + 1 HTTP request) — modern browsers render emoji natively without it.

Enable the Heartbeat API toggle. It reduces admin polling from every 15 seconds to every 60 seconds. For most sites the difference is invisible to editors.

Yes. This plugin removes features at the WordPress hook level before caching plugins run. Use both — they do different jobs. This plugin removes unnecessary output; a caching plugin stores and serves the result.