Even though I had disabled Avatars completely under Settings => Discussions, my site was still loading javascrips and CSS from s.gravatar.com (secure.gravatar.com if you are using SSL). So what is up?

First of why care? Well since I have disabled avatars since I don’t need them, I don’t want my visitors to download unnecessary files. Just load your page and start your browsers developers tools (Chrome shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+I). There you should be able to see that your site is currently downloading lots of files, each file is a possible delay. I use GTMetrix sometimes just what they think of my site.

Well back to the what is happening. Without any need my site is instructing each visitor to download the following javascript and CSS files:

Since one of the files are called hovercard.css we know that these files are from the plugin jetpack (well not really but I know). Armed with that I googled a bit. And found how to disable hovercards in wordpress. Well that seemed easy, too easy. There is no checkbox with the text Gravatar Hovercard. Well guess what. If you enable avatars, then the option will be available.

Solution

  • Enable Avatars
  • Disable Gravatar Hovercards
  • Disable Avatars

And now in the future remember to disable the hovercards before all the avatars.