Bad Behavior / Bad Behaviour

The Bad Behavior Connector

Bad Behavior runs on a wide variety of PHP-based Web applications because of its modular, platform independent architecture. Because each Web application is different, Bad Behavior requires a platform connector to interface to each application to provide common functions such as database access, configuration and administration. The platform connector approach also resolves licensing issues with certain non-free applications.

This is why installing Bad Behavior requires additional steps beyond what is usually required for installing extensions to PHP-based Web applications. It requires both the core, which you download here, and the platform connector, which is a plugin or extension specifically designed for the Web application you are using, and which is obtained from download areas provided by those applications’ Web sites.

For MediaWiki and WordPress, the platform connector is included with the core download, so only one step is required. For some applications, such as LifeType, the platform connector is built in to the application, and only downloading or upgrading the core is required. In addition, the Bad Behavior core includes a generic platform connector which can be called directly from homemade PHP scripts or customized to connect to new web applications.

This approach has proved remarkably stable, with no or minor changes to the platform connectors in over two years, and no change to the callback API which Bad Behavior uses to talk to the platform connector. It’s expected that the platform connector will not need to change until the next major (3.0) version of Bad Behavior, and perhaps not even then. It’s also proved remarkably easy to integrate Bad Behavior into new applications this way, making it one of the most widely ported link spam solutions available.

All this means that no matter what you run on your Web site, if it’s based on PHP, then Bad Behavior will be there for you.