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  1. Home
  2. Plugins
  3. Clean
  4. Selfish Fresh Start
Selfish Fresh Start icon

Selfish Fresh Start

Built to run on EVERY WordPress install, selfish fresh start removes unneeded admin and html meta clutter.

By Chuck Reynolds·Clean·Free
4(5 reviews)
·30 active installs·Updated 8 years ago
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As of April 2026, Selfish Fresh Start is a WordPress clean plugin with 30 active installations and a 4/5 rating from 5 reviews. It has been downloaded 8.5K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 4.0+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2011. Last updated 8 years ago — may have compatibility concerns. Top alternative: WP-Sweep.

4/55 reviews
30active installs
8.5K+total downloads
15 yearssince 2011

Overview

This WordPress plugin removes most, in my opinion, unneeded crappy dashboard, post and page widgets, fixes formatted curly quote problems, checks for and removes Hello Dolly plugin, removes junk header tags, removes generator header tag for extra security, removes update notifications for non-admins, prevents self-pinging, removes smilies and trackbacks, and a few other settings that nobody needs either. This is built to be very generalized so it will work with every WordPress site as a good clean-up fresh start and help keep clients out of the editing files.

Current Operations

  • Removed: clean up unneeded header tags including:
    • wlw manifest links
    • rsd links
    • previous and next post links
    • wordpress generator
    • shortlink generation
  • Removed: admin dashboard widgets:
    • core: quick draft / your r…
Read full description on WordPress.org

Ratings & Reviews

45 reviews
5 ★
3
4 ★
0
3 ★
1
2 ★
1
1 ★
0

Compatibility

WordPress4.0+ requiredTested up to 4.9.29
PHPfalse+ required

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Frequently Asked Questions

Changelog

1.2.0

Release Date – 2017-11-14

  • tested up to WP 4.9
  • removed the removing of old IM profile fields that have been deprecated
  • removed the removing of old dashboard widgets that have been merged or deprecated
  • updated the minimum required version of WP to 4.0 due to the deprecated widgets
  • removed, by request, another news rss feed dashboard box; this one from moderntribe plugins
View full changelog on WordPress.org

Contributors

Chuck ReynoldsChuck Reynolds
Plugin Info
Version
1.2.0
Last Updated
Nov 15, 2017
WP Requires
4.0+
Tested Up To
4.9.29
PHP Requires
false+
Active Installs
30
Downloads
8.5K+
Added
Sep 3, 2011
Business
Free

Tags

cleanclean adminfresh startnew installcurly quotes

Developer

C
Chuck Reynolds
4 plugins0.0M+ total installs
View all plugins →

Quick Compare

Selfish Fresh Start vs WP-Sweep→Selfish Fresh Start vs Advanced Database Cleaner – Optimize &…→Selfish Fresh Start vs Media Cleaner: Clean your WordPress!→

Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.