A warning to Flytonic theme users

[universal4]

Auto update?

I think that would be at the root of taking advantage of customers.

There is likely a pretty long list of what they "could" do, but I think it is more of a situation that should be monitored, and now that many are aware, it will be.

In the end, it could also end up being improved even more, but only time will tell.

Rick
Universal4

[baldidiot]

Auto update?]

Flytonic doesn't auto update so perhaps be very cautious of any new updates until someone has looked through it properly.

[MJM]

I’m not looking forward to needing to get off this system because the review plugin gave me limited brand management, review pages, and table listings that were geotargeted to both countries and US states using just one short code.

Noticed this morning that I get one set of geotargeted results while logged in, and a whole other set while logged out. Not even sure how that could be!

emailed the thomas@flytonic email I’ve used for years and as recently as February - returned as undeliverable. Not going to bother with the proper support channel since I know I just need to transition to something else

now the real question is - to what. Ugh

[baldidiot]

Noticed this morning that I get one set of geotargeted results while logged in, and a whole other set while logged out. Not even sure how that could be!

Could be related to caching - often when you're logged in you see a non-cached version.

Which one was correct for your location?

[MJM]

Logged in was serving us results, logged out uk results (my default rotw listings are also different than either of those)

Cache has drove me nuts with geo targeting! I use wp-rocket.

[baldidiot]

Logged in was serving us results, logged out uk results (my default rotw listings are also different than either of those)

Cache has drove me nuts with geo targeting! I use wp-rocket.

I'm assuming you're expecting to see the US results? Likely the cache then.

Tbh cache and geotargetting is notoriously problematic, you need to either exclude the geotargetted section from the cache entirely so it's served fresh each time or have different cache for different regions.

[MJM]

I'm assuming you're expecting to see the US results? Likely the cache then.

Tbh cache and geotargetting is notoriously problematic, you need to either exclude the geotargetted section from the cache entirely so it's served fresh each time or have different cache for different regions.

Yes, I'm in the US so I'm only seeing the proper results when logged in. That makes me wonder what my visitors are seeing - and this is inconsistent (happens sometimes, not others).

What would you suggest doing? WP-Rocket was supposed to be "geotargeting friendly" option when I switched to it awhile back. I'm at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this tbh. Thanks for the replies btw!

[baldidiot]

Yes, I'm in the US so I'm only seeing the proper results when logged in. That makes me wonder what my visitors are seeing - and this is inconsistent (happens sometimes, not others).

What would you suggest doing? WP-Rocket was supposed to be "geotargeting friendly" option when I switched to it awhile back. I'm at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this tbh. Thanks for the replies btw!

Whether or not it appears to happen could depend on the version that's been cached. If a US visitor triggered the shortcode to load then the cached version would be US, so might look correct to you. Or if the cache had expired and you were the first visitor it would be based on your IP.

No idea about WP-Rocket I'm afraid, not something I've used myself. If they say it's geotargeting friendly then maybe ask them?

As for excluding, depends on the plug in as they'll all have their own way of doing it or specific markup that needs adding.

[MJM]

Unfortunately I've been down that road - if you ask WP-Rocket they will tell you to ask Flytonic about it and vice versa.

I've known I had to come up with a better solution for a long time now, but resisted it because I'm not an advanced user - not a dev, not a coder, and I've found the process of hiring one that understands our industry very difficult plus for security reasons we like to do things ourselves whenever possible.

So now I'm back to the drawing board on a lot of sites, many established already - in terms of how we handle review pages, cta's, and geotargeting overall.

Probably will explore the concept of something like ninja tables + geotargetingWP and see how it goes from there. I like the idea of having brand "profiles" that handle URL cloaking, geotargeting, review/bonus details, etc - but no product out there has met our needs, or isn't shady like this Flytonic brand.

Frustrating - because I'd pay 1k a year vs $79 for the right product.

[allfreechips]

Have you guys thought of just having somthing developed for you instead of chasing themes? I mean a few shortcodes can do wonders

[MJM]

Have you guys thought of just having somthing developed for you instead of chasing themes? I mean a few shortcodes can do wonders

In our case we don’t buy specialized themes - I only was using the Flytonic review plugin as a pseudo brand management system. Left a lot to be desired but got us by for years.

Now will probably need to look into getting something developed - always wanted to avoid that due to ongoing maintenance and the difficulty in vetting a developer.

open to any great ideas!

[universal4]

I agree sounds like the testing bit is possibly cache.

A possible workaround (to a degree) for the logged in not logged in testing is to use a few browsers.

One you log in with for editing and changing, open a fresh different browser for testing etc, it will not overcome server side caching issues but might help with stuff going on locally.

/back to the theme
It is starting to look like more people are at least somewhat concerned with the risk and certainly if the support system will now be lacking that might be a bad sign.

Here are a handful of threads with recent discussions that might help with some members wanting additional choices.
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/wordpress...ed-248764.html
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/clean-bea...te-245433.html
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/wordpress...me-249661.html
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/spinoko-n...ic-252326.html
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/wordpress...me-251974.html
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/best-word...ok-249922.html

No particular order and I have not tried any of them, but a few appear to have promise.

Rick
Universal4

[ARZ]

I also got this Email, but ignored it, since I do not use the theme for a long time. Better keep monitoring, but it´s possible it is just some kind of spam (hope so).

[flytonic]

Official response from flytonic:
1. About change in management: yes, new management in place in Aug 2019. But due to NDA agreement, we can't share more details at this moment.
2. Above Email: It is completely false and misleading info to defame us. Technically it is not possible unless someone uses live API which we never use in any theme to connect our servers. With so many installs of flytonic, our own site will be down if all websites hit our server through api.
3. Why we have been pushing on services: We are just exploring more verticals to expand our portfolio
4. Future Changes: We are obliged to provide updates and new features to our customer as a part of our sales/service agreement. We will release new updates to enhance our products, better user experience. After each updates, we send emails with change logs to customers.

[universal4]

It is interesting that disclosure or transparency is mentioned or implied, when it was not originally provided.

I agree that many affiliates have every reason to proceed forward with caution since this is more then a change of focus for the company that originally developed and sold the flytonic theme product, but an OWNERSHIP change to a company with a completely different focus and background.

Whether this will be good for the theme and future development and how this will affect affiliates currently using the theme or considering using the theme will only be determined over time.

For now the caution is clearly warranted.

Rick
Universal4
GPWA Forum Administrator

[tallman]

I'm running flytonic themes. For the past few months my template and sidebar banner groups keep getting deleted. There response was asking if my site was hacked lol. I make sure everything is as secure as possible, but it seems with all this new news, we should stay on top. Might need to move to some new themes. Any good suggestions? Cheers

[Theratman]

I'm running flytonic themes. For the past few months my template and sidebar banner groups keep getting deleted. There response was asking if my site was hacked lol. I make sure everything is as secure as possible, but it seems with all this new news, we should stay on top. Might need to move to some new themes. Any good suggestions? Cheers

That sounds like there have been changes to the theme and then a theme update removes the changes? Very curious.

[Former Member 14]

Whoever has purchased flytonic, made a post over at AGD in reference to a member's PBN.

https://www.affiliateguarddog.com/co...2/#post-109265

Let me know if you need help in PBN development, contact support(at)flytonic.com

Now, the previous owner of flytonic (AFAIK) didn't mix his WP theme business with PBN(s).

However it seems the new owner(s) maybe up to some nefarious plans, which would ride on the backs of previously paid themes, and their subsequent updates, with only knows what, packed into their payload

Money has a way of making some people do DUMB things.

[WBM]

Check page source code as links might not be visible

[NdeJonge]

Has anyone updated the themes lately? I received an email on June 15th that the themes were updated to support the google rich content and review snippets.