Review of Sitelock
My negative review about SiteLock 👿The backstory:I use HostGator hosting. I had an additional service connected, the SiteLock addon, which monitors the security of the website.Yesterday morning I received a message from SiteLock that malware was detected on my site. The day before, I had inserted the advertising network code, which is often scolded by antivirus because of its specifics. This code is not actually malware, but to experiment, I decided to remove the code from the site and restart SiteLock scanning. I also enabled the "SiteLock CDN/Firewall" feature in my personal account at HostGator.The same evening, I discovered that my site had become unavailable. Chrome was showing an error:"This site can’t be reached.The webpage at https://******/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.ERR_SSL_UNRECOGNIZED_NAME_ALERT"It also turned out that the site is successfully opened via VPN and mobile network.I googled the problem, found some ideas, tried to apply them (in particular, to clear the DNS cache, reboot the router, etc.). Nothing helped.I decided to write to HostGator support. It is noteworthy, that I like their technical support: always friendly consultants, available 24/7, solve problems quickly.I wrote to "Malware/Security" section. I explained the situation (that SiteLock was scolding at the advertising script, that it wasn't malware, but I removed the script anyway; I specified that the site is not available only on my network and that I recently enabled SiteLock’s CDN/Firewall).A SiteLock representative joined the chat room, requested my website name, and then started asking me absolutely unconstructive questions:- Do I feel that the malware has been removed?- Do I know how malware works?- Do I understand what he says?Then he started talking that the viruses will come back unless I protect my site "for just 40 bucks a month". At this point, I probably should have become really scared and gave him money immediately (LOL 😕).I had a strong feeling that SiteLock's representative thought he might intimidate me and hit me up for money. But the trick is that I am aware of what kind of scripts I placed on my site. I also think I can tell the difference between malicious code and other problems with access to the site. If the malware had crashed my site, the site would have been unavailable from any network, not only from my home network.So I silently closed the chat with SiteLock. And after 30 seconds I received a catch-up email 💩:“Here are the details of the services to remove and prevent malware:Website Scanning TrueSpeed CDNTrueShield WAF I look forward to your feedback on this service for $25 per month.”After that, I decided I no longer want to use SiteLock services and disabled their add-on (which costs $3 a month) on my hosting ❌.The problem with the site has not disappeared and I decided to write again to HostGator technical support, but in another section - Tech Support/SSL.This time I was answered directly by a consultant from HostGator. He asked permission to access my cPanel, and found a problem with the A record there. The record was changed from my domain name to ***.sitelockcdn.net ❗. Because of this, SSL did not work properly. We changed the record to the original one and the site soon started working.Conclusion: As I understand it, the A record changed because I clicked the “SiteLock CDN/Firewall enable” button. While the update came into effect, my site was unavailable.Maybe the next day everything would have been fine, but my experience convinced me to say goodbye to SiteLock forever, because nothing annoys me more than trying to hit me up for money and make me look like a fool without even bothering to figure out the situation 👿.😏 Ironically, the problem was caused precisely because of SiteLock's actions, which did not warn me that my site might be unavailable for a few hours after the firewall enabling.
