Easy Optimizer – Speed, Cache, Unused CSS, Delay JS, Lazy Load, LCP & Core Web Vitals

2.3.0

• Added: first-run setup wizard. On a new install, nothing is enabled until you choose one of three presets — Safe (cache, browser caching, gzip, font-display swap, LCP preload, lazy load, cache preload, moderate prefetch), Balanced (adds Remove Unused CSS in Async mode, Delay JS with jQuery excluded, and add-missing-image-dimensions), or Maximum (Used CSS in Delay mode, Delay JS including jQuery, lazy-load fonts). Existing sites keep their settings and are not shown the wizard.
• Added: Minify CSS and Minify JavaScript. Each minifies local files only, caches the result on disk, and processes a given file just once, so the per-request cost stays minimal. Already-minified files are skipped, relative url()/@import paths inside CSS are rewritten so assets keep resolving, and the Delay-JS loader and lazy-load runtime are never touched. Minify reuses the existing Exclude Stylesheets / Exclude Scripts fields and works independently of Remove Unused CSS and Delay JS.
• Added: Safe Mode button (Settings tab) that instantly reverts to the conservative Safe preset and turns off the riskier features — a one-click known-good baseline for troubleshooting.
• Added: query-string debug switches. Append ?nooptimize, ?nocache, ?nodelayjs, or ?norucss to any front-end URL to disable that feature for a single request without changing settings (the switched request is never cached, so you always see fresh output). Instructions are shown on the Settings tab.
• Fixed: Remove Unused CSS now has a fail-safe — original stylesheets are only delayed/async’d/removed after a valid Used CSS file has been generated and passes a confidence check (minimum size, real rule blocks, at least one stylesheet processed). If generation comes up empty or low-confidence, the page is served with its original styling untouched and is not cached, preventing rare unstyled-page output.
• Changed: the diagnostics opt-in is now requested in the setup wizard (and remains toggleable later), so the separate opt-in admin notice has been removed.

2.2.2

• Fixed: cached page count could repeatedly drop back to near-zero while the preload queue stayed at hundreds/thousands of URLs. Recording a page’s LCP element no longer wipes the entire cache and restarts the whole preload crawl — it now refreshes only the affected page. This removes a self-perpetuating clear → re-preload loop that prevented the cache from ever filling on some sites.
• Fixed: lazily-expired cached pages now adjust the page counter correctly, so the dashboard count no longer drifts upward after TTL expiry.
• Improved: cached files are written atomically (temporary file + rename) so a concurrent visitor can never receive a half-written page under load.
• Improved: Apache-served cache files always send a single Vary: Accept-Encoding.
• Added: Debug Log now records excessive cache purges, stalled or looping preload queues, the origin of every full cache clear, and cache-write failures — making invalidation loops easy to spot.
• Added: Settings → Debug Logging lets you enable/disable error and warning logging independently. Error logging is on by default.
• Fixed: the Debug Log is no longer deleted when you clear the cache. It now lives in wp-content/cache/easyopt-logs/ (outside the cache directory); any existing log is migrated automatically on update.
• Improved: preload and serving warnings are far less noisy — the preload “queue growing” and “stalled” warnings now only fire on a genuine problem (e.g. a real invalidation loop, or an actively-running queue that isn’t progressing), not during a normal preload start or behind a CDN.
• Performance: no feature changes; the loop fix substantially lowers CPU and disk usage on busy and low-resource/shared hosting.

2.2.1

• Fixed: HTTP 500 on some Apache/LiteSpeed servers after writing .htaccess. Removed the obsolete Internet Explorer / Netscape 4 BrowserMatch gzip directives, which are rejected by the LiteSpeed/OpenLiteSpeed config parser. Gzip and Brotli compression are unchanged — the exact same content types are still compressed.
• Fixed: AddOutputFilterByType (Gzip/Brotli) is now wrapped in <IfModule mod_filter.c>, the correct module on Apache 2.4, instead of mod_deflate.c.
• Fixed: Cache-directory responses no longer send Content-Encoding: gzip on uncompressed files — the gzip headers are now scoped to the .html_gzip cache files only, preventing rare decode errors for clients that don’t accept gzip.
• New: Per-server safety probe. Before writing to the live .htaccess, risky rule classes (Gzip directives and Options -Indexes) are now tested in an isolated throwaway directory. Any rule the server can’t parse is skipped automatically so it can never 500 the site — the page-cache rewrite, Expires headers and everything else still apply.
• New: Options -Indexes is only emitted after passing its sandbox probe (it 500s where AllowOverride forbids it). A blank index.html is written to the cache directory as a universal directory-listing safeguard.
• New: OpenLiteSpeed is now detected and the Gzip block is skipped on it (the server compresses natively), matching how other top performance plugins behave.
• Improved: The loopback validation no longer treats a blocked loopback as success. If it can’t confirm the write, an admin notice is shown instead of silently continuing.
• New filters: easyopt_htaccess_gzip block output and easyopt_probe_unverified_default / easyopt_probe_unverified_ok for hosts that block loopback HTTP.

2.2.0

• New: Auto-detect and purge server-level caches across major hosting providers (Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Pantheon, Flywheel, Pressable, and more).
• New: Dashboard card showing detected server cache layers.
• New: Direct Varnish HTTP PURGE fallback for Cloudways when Breeze is not installed.
• Improved: Server cache purge is rate-limited to once per request and uses non-blocking HTTP.
• Improved: Full server purge only on explicit cache clear — post saves only purge the changed URL.
• Improved: Apache htacess creation.
• Added support for Pantheon, Flywheel, Pressable, Closte, and Convesio hosting environments.

2.1.0

• New: Optimization tab split into 5 sub-tabs — JavaScript, CSS, Lazy Load, Preload LCP and Prefetch Pages
• New: Database tab split into 2 sub-tabs — Database Cleanup and Autoload Health
• New: Heartbeat & Cron tab — consolidates Heartbeat API control, WP-Cron throttle and Cron Event Manager
• New: Settings tab with Import/Export and “Delete all plugin data on uninstall” toggle
• New: Collapsible help sections throughout all panels
• New: Dependency check on Lazyload Fonts when Remove Unused CSS is not enabled
• New: Disable Block Library CSS toggle in Bloat Removal
• New: Rewrite Elementor Background Images toggle in Image CDN panel
• New: Stylesheet Behavior “Remove” option with inline breakage warning
• Improved: “Instant Load” renamed to “Prefetch Pages” for clarity
• Improved: Cache exclusion fields displayed in compact 3-column grid
• Improved: Preload Cache enabled by default with auto-restart on cache clear
• Improved: Admin toolbar “Clear All Cache” triggers preload restart when preload is enabled
• Performance: pre_option shim uses prefix-based early exit
• Performance: Database cleanup counts moved to async REST API call

2.0.3

• New: Heartbeat API control with location and frequency settings
• New: WP-Cron frequency throttle using transient-based lock
• New: Cron Event Manager with manual run and delete
• New: Defer JavaScript method as alternative to delay
• New: Separate mobile/desktop Used CSS generation
• New: Autoload Health auditor
• New: Expanded mobile safelist for Used CSS
• Fixed: Cloudflare test connection no longer requires pre-save
• Improved: Dashboard module rows fully clickable

2.0.2

• Improved: Database snapshot restore

2.0.1

• Improved: Performance optimizations for conditional module loading

2.0.0

Major architecture rewrite with 25+ new features including page cache, cache preload, remove unused CSS, delay JavaScript, LCP preload, prefetch pages, font optimization, database cleanup with snapshots, Cloudflare integration, 9 hosting integrations, 8 accessibility toggles, 2 SEO toggles, 15 bloat removal toggles and a new admin dashboard.

1.1

• Initial release with lazy load and Image CDN.