How to remove the footer encryption in a wordpress theme

Posted under Coding, Dreamweaver, Internet, Software by ifoundafix

The other day while browsing the Internet I Found A Fix for a recent problem I was having. The issue is described as follows;

I had downloaded a free wordpress theme for my blog and I was unable to modify the footer.php file because it had been encrypted. This is most likely because the author of the theme wanted to keep their link at the bottom of the blog in order to maintain credit for their work.

The solution and description to this error is set out below; Most website owners would require the freedom to change how the footer looks. With an encrypted footer, you can’t change things like adding a “Contact Us” link , Copyright link or an RSS button, etc. You might also want to check whether there is any malicious code in the encryption. For example there could be some spurious ‘phone home’ code.

The following is the screenshot of how the encrypted footer might look:<?php $_F=__FILE__;$_X=’Pzs48sZDcR2IGcNsMXNzPSJjbDUxbjVyIj48L2Q0dj4NCjwvZDR2Pg 

0KPC9kNHY+DQo8ZDR2IDRkPSJiMnR0Mm0iPgc0KPGQ0diBjbDFzcz0idzRkdGgiP

TsgPz4gNHMgcDJ3NXI1ZCBieSA8MSBocjVmPSJoadHcRwOi8vfd3d3LnNoMXJrc3Ax

YzUuYzJtIj5TaDFya1NwMWM1IFc1YiBIMnN0NGa5naPCs8xPiwgPDEgaHI1Zj0iaHR0c

DovL3d3dy5ncjFuZG0xdHI0eC5jMm0iPmQydf25sMjFkIGcxbTVzPC8xPiAxbmQgZD

szNGduNWQgYngkgPDEgaHI1Zj0iaHR0cDovfL3d3dy4xdHRyMWN0LXcybTVuLjJyZ

y8iPkF0dHIxY3QgVzJtNW48LzE+DQo8L2Q0dj4NCjwvZDR2Pg0KPC9kNHY+DQo8

L2IyZHk+DQo8L2h0bWw+’;eval(base64_decode(‘JF9YPWJhc2U2NF9kZWNvZG

UoJF9YKTskX1g9c3RydHIoJF9YLCcxMjM0NTZhb3VpZScsJ2FvdWllMTIzNDU2Jyk w==’));?>

To remove this encryption, please follow these steps..

Step 1

 Locate and open index.php 

• Find the include code for the footer. The footer include code is usually like this: <?php get_footer(); ?>

Step 2

Add this comment code on the top and bottom of the footer code:

<!-WordPress footer code starts here–>
<?php get_footer(); ?>
<!-WordPress footer code ends here–>

Save the file and upload it to the server.

Step 3

Load the theme in a browser. View the source code by clicking

View -> Source (If you view in IE) or Ctrl + U (If you view in Firefox)

Step 4

The source code in between <!- WordPress footer code starts here–> and <!-WordPress footer code ends here–> is the source code for the footer.

Now, all you need to do is open footer.php and replace the encrypted code from earlier with the actual source code.

After this, you can then start to modify the footer to suit your own requirements.
Note: This article is not advocating that you  remove the credits to the author.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance and thank Wpconfig and templatelite for their solution(s).

I hope you too have Found A Fix!!