After about 3 minutes of internet research on the subject, I decided to no longer use the Disqus comment system on this blog. I had no serious problems with Disqus. The service was free and it worked well. Yet, I found some reasons to turn off Disqus and I think they are strong enough to warrant keeping it turned off. In fact, I have deleted the plugin and do not plan on re-installing it.
Here are the reasons why I think uninstalling Disqus was a good move:
- It drastically improved my page load speed. I’m not a technical wizard, but I guess it is because using the comments system inside WordPress allows the comment system to be cached along with the post. (Any tech guru’s who have a better explanation can chime in with a comment as to why it got faster)
- The native Worpress comment system works better with the the WPTouch plugin. When using a touch screen device, the count is superimposed on the little calendar page icon within the WPTouch theme. This helps me keep track of comments and respond or spam them accordingly. Disqus would email me, but the functionality built into WPTouch makes it much easier to track on my mobile device using the native WordPress comment system.
- The WordPress Checker Extension in Chrome works better with WordPress than with Disqus. Since Chrome is my primary browser, this helps me keep better track of comments.
- The WordPress comment functionality seems to work adequately and I don’t think I’m missing any benefits.
Feel free to comment about how to make the comment experience better for readers. I’d love to hear any ideas.