This is a warning to all WordPress and Joomla! users (I don’t use Joomla! by the way): Templates Browser is a phishing site that gathers public themes for both systems (it may gather themes of other software in future), modifies functions.php to add a function that secretly gathers and sticks in CSS-hidden spam and malicious links to (usually) their footers.

That means you and your readers won’t see the links but text browsers (like lynx) and robots (like Googlebot, oh no) will, and that means Google will hate you forever and hurl your blog or site into their blacklist, never to appear in their search results again.

And what does that mean? Extremely bad reputation and much less traffic. So stay away from Templates Browser if you want to be sure the themes you download are clean.

Templates Browser is re-distributing public blog themes which are modified in such a way as to exploit the end user by inserting hidden spam or malware links. A quick search concerning the website pulls up the following links on AboutUs, Joomla forums, and Onnoot - here & here.

Read More at 5ThirtyOne »

My thoughts

I knew this would happen! This leaves me to fear that any WP themes I might make in future will be exploited by Templates Browser. Well, the least I could do is warn you (and other readers), every time I release a new theme, to only download from NOVALISTIC, BoltPress or the WordPress Theme Viewer.

Many of you may’ve been confused by the difference in spelling between TemplateBrowser.com and Templatesbrowser.com, but whichever URI it is, just stay away.

If you want to browse around and download a WordPress or Joomla! theme I suggest to:

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